


A Cord of Three Strands

by PurpleHydrangeas



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, BAMF Hermione Granger, Childhood Friends, Developing Relationship, Earth Magic, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Growing Up, Harry Potter was Raised by Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, Involved Grangers, Magical Triad, No Incest, Relationship Negotiation, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Teenage Drama, True Love, V Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-08-21 21:58:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 263,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8261828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleHydrangeas/pseuds/PurpleHydrangeas
Summary: Though they don't know it when they literally bump into each other at King's Cross in 1991, Fred, George, and Hermione are a triad, the power behind the the the Golden Trio. They alone hold the power that, like the Prewitt Triad before them, will enable Harry to defeat Voldemort. What happens to cannon events, then, when Hermione is the force to be reckoned with, and wields the Power the Dark Lord knows not?





	1. 1991-1992 School Year

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is the obligatory triad fic for my OT3. The whole thing is AU, obviously. 
> 
> Title comes from Ecclesiastes 4:12. "And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart." 
> 
> There is nothing remotely religious about this story, I've just been saving the title for this triad story. Two can resist Voldemort, but three, three can overpower him. 
> 
> Honestly, though, this story is more about the relationship dynamics of FHG over the backdrop of their Hogwarts years.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1st/3rd Year
> 
> I know these are a dime a dozen, and not very original in premise, but I sort of like how this one ends.

Hermione walked along, her nose buried in her book. She was quite certain, if she could just finish this section on the wizarding educational systems, that she wouldn’t feel quite so nervous. Mum seemed to understand her motivations, because Mum understood most everything.

Gently, she reminded Hermione, “You wouldn’t have been invited if you didn’t belong.” 

There was not much else she could say without violating the secrets to which they had been bound, or at least that she might say when they were in public. Hermione nodded, and resolved to just finish the page. The section on Post-Secondary education could wait until she had arrived at Hogwarts. There was some wisdom to pacing herself and taking one thing on at a time. 

She never even got the chance to finish reading the sentence. Though Hermione was quite practiced at reading and weaving her way through crowds, she never anticipated the impact of a body against her own. She heard her mother calling her name, as  she slammed into a boy, much taller than she, and her book went flying from her grasp as she lost her breath. 

A hand gently steadied her as she lurched backwards, and almost hit the floor. “Steady…”

Hermione knew she was going to lose her footing. She wobbled, her whole focus not on maintaining her balance, but rather on integrating what she was seeing and feeling and doing into a whole that her brain could process. It was not going well. Her brain seemed to be wholly centered on the people that had just entered her life like a meteor hitting the earth. 

Another hand pulled her forward gently. He had the same red hair as his counterpart, the same expressive eyes, but was at once a totally separate and distinct entity in her mind. He peered at her, “You’re okay, aren’t you?”

“Here’s your book.” The first person extended the book that had hit him in the chest. “You should check the glossary. It’s extensive.” 

“George and I weren’t watching.” The second young man added, “Sorry.”

Hermione found her voice, “I’m fine.”

She thought she saw something about them that she knew, for their manner was easy and their gazes unguarded. And yet, she knew she did not know these boys, because somewhere, her parents were going on with thanks and banal trivialities. How strange. They were right next to her, and Hermione barely heard them.

Hermione pulled her gaze away from the faces that were watching her intently, and kept her voice very low and soft, “You wouldn’t happen to know how to get on the platform, would you?”

“Platform, you say?” The as yet unnamed brother of George smiled, “Platform?”

Hermione colored. She had assumed that they were like her. She had only had her wand for a few weeks, and here she was, on the verge of having it snapped. It was only that Professor McGonagall hadn’t told her how to find the platform, or that she had forgotten been told. At present they were on their way to Platform Nine, and her parents were expecting her to get them onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

She didn’t remember how. It seemed a rather glaring failure before she had even gotten started. 

“Fred…” George chastened, “She’s scared. Leave off.” 

Hermione stuck out her chin. She wasn’t scared of anything. Anything. 

Fred looked at her boldly, “You’ve got nothing to be nervous about at Hogwarts.”

Relief rushed through Hermione, along with a bevy of questions. Both Fred and George seemed to know this, for they both went to speak at the same time. Hermione decided that letting them speak was likely the wisest option. There was so much she did not know about the Wizarding community, to the point that she didn’t even know what sort of questions to ask, or where to begin.

“George! Fred!” A voice called out, “Fred! George!”

Mum looked carefully at the twins, “I think your Mum is looking for you boys.” 

“I can’t send up a flare—” Fred smiled at Mum. 

George continued, “But really, the hair should be enough.” 

Dad hid a chuckle as Hermione heard a woman bustling along, calling out for the twins and issuing last minute instructions to the children around her, as though if she stopped talking and marshaling them, chaos would ensue. 

“There you boys are!” A curvy woman with several other children in tow stopped short, “We’re going to miss the train. Mugg—” She stopped short, “Come along, then.” She looked at Mum and Dad, “I do hope my sons have made their apologies to you.”

Dad assured them they had, “In fact, your sons were doing Bunny a service. We’re look for the, uh, special platform. She’s going to a special school in Scotland, you see…”

“Say no more. I’m Molly Weasley.” She began to lead them through the concourse, “My husband works at the Ministry with Muggle Artifacts. I’m happy to help.” 

As they walked, she introduced her children, “Now, the oldest here is Percy, he’s a prefect, then Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny.” She smiled at Hermione, “Ron’s in your year, Bunny, was it?”

Hermione smiled, “No, ma’am.” Hermione replied, “My name is Hermione Granger.”

“Hermee-what?” The youngest boy, Ron, asked. 

“Hermione—” George stressed. 

“Don’t you read?” Fred returned, “Hermione was the—-”

“I can introduce myself, thanks.” Hermione cut them off at the knees gently. She didn’t need anyone to speak for her, and she gathered that if she didn’t assert herself now, George and Fred would take it upon themselves to advocate for her. She might be weird, but she wasn’t pitiable. She could handle herself quite well. “Hermione is a name from one of the plays of Shakespeare.” 

“He was one of us, you know.” Percy offered, approvingly, “There is a great affinity for his works in our circles. My friend…”

Ron cried, “Oh, Penelope! Look at my prefect badge!”

“Doesn’t it just” Fred began, leaving Hermione to gather that they finished each other’s sentences quite a lot. 

“Make you weak in the knees?” George finished. 

“You shouldn’t make fun of other’s accomplishments.” Hermione frowned, “There’s nothing wrong with being brainy.” 

“Oh, Perce isn’t brainy.” George replied. 

The sole girl, Ginny, informed her. “The twins are the wicked smart ones.” 

“It’s just that Perce is a right swot.” Ron allowed, as though this was a fact they all knew and accepted about their brother. Naturally, Hermione thought they were only being so frank because their parents were cutting through the crowd, leaving them to trail a few steps behind in their wake. 

“I make no bones about my integrity and diligence.” Percy replied from where he was striding along just ahead and to the left of Hermione, from where she was walking between Fred and George, “I will do my duty to my upmost and make no apologies for it.” 

From where she was walking ahead with Mum and Dad, Mrs. Weasley came to a stop, and directed Percy clean through the wall, with a nod at the seemingly bored man with reading _The Sun_ by the wall. Hermione forced herself to keep her jaw closed. “Fred, George, you’re next.” She looked at the girl that had fallen into step at Hermione’s side, “Ginny, come and hold Mummy’s hand.”

Ginny colored, and went to protest. Seeing an avenue that would allow Hermione to both help Ginny and herself, Hermione adopted her best timid voice, “Mrs. Weasley…” She forced her face to wobble just a little, but not too much, “Couldn’t Ginny go through with me? I’d even hold her hand, if you like. You could help my Mum and Dad, then.”

“Why, certainly!” Mrs. Weasley winked. Hermione was only glad she’d bought her slight hesitation wholesale. She knew what it was to be made to feel different from other children. She knew what it was to be fundamentally different. She wasn’t above doing what she had to do to spare Ginny that pain, “You girls next, then…”

“Mum, I’ll go first, if you don’t mind.” With that, Fred headed toward the wall at a dead run, and disappeared just before Hermione thought for sure he’d hit the wall. 

Then, emboldened, Hermione and Ginny crossed through the portal. When the came through on the other side, Hermione stood stock still in wonder as Ginny thanked her for her help. She felt like she had just crossed into Narnia. A steam engine train billowed on the track, gleaming and larger than life, majestically scarlet. 

 Hermione jumped when she realized her shock was holding up the line, and moved ahead just as George’s palm brushed her elbow.

He winked. “Fabulous acting. You’ve a fan in Gin, now.” 

Fred grinned from where he was leaning against a bench with Percy and the cart of luggage. He gave her a slow nod of approval. 

That was the last she saw of either Fred or George for some time, largely because she spent a little while loading up her trunk in one of the luggage cars and having a heartfelt and tearful goodbye with Mum and Dad. Hermione didn’t really want to leave them. They were the only people in the world who accepted her, even though they didn’t really understand her. 

Hermione knew, though she did not know why she knew it, that getting on that chance to really find acceptance and understanding, if not from others, than certainly from herself. She had to find some way to truly understand who and what she was, mostly for her own peace of mind. 

She thereby gave her parents one last hug, swore she’d write immediately and find a way to call if she could, though the latter didn’t seem very likely. 

Mrs. Weasley, who seemed to be fast friends with her parents, finished hugging Ron firmly, and looked between them, “Watch out for Ronnie, won’t you, Hermione?” She looked at Ron, then, “And that goes for you, too. Watch out for Hermione.”

“Hey!” George smiled, coming up from the other end of the platform where boarding was taking place, “What are Fred and I, cabbages? We’ll look out for her. And Ronnikins, if we must.” He stepped back, returning a wave from a very pretty girl, Hermione noted, “Well, come on, you lot. Fred’s guarding a compartment.” 

“That’s against the rules!” Ginny piped up, “But why does that surprise me?”

“I’ll send you an owl telling you all about Harry’s antics, Gin-Gin.” George fondly promised her. “But we really do have to go.”

Ginny blushed, and Mrs. Weasley told Mum that her dear Ginny was absolutely fascinated by the son of two friends of the family. They lived in London. Mrs. Weasley apologized that, having been delayed, she was now unable to introduce to Mum and Dad to the Lupin-Black family. 

“Ready?” He asked her because Ron had already headed off to the train. 

Hermione stepped back, and gripped her backpack. She looked at her parents, and then at the two boys who were looking at her with expectation. She made up her mind. “Ready.” 

As they walked to the train, Hermione found herself already regretting her decision. What if no one liked her? What if she wasn’t magical? What if this was a great big joke? What if she failed? What if she wasn’t good enough? What if people laughed? What if she woke up and found that the entire day had been nothing but a dream, and this last year a joke?

As she boarded the train, George gripped her hand to pull her up the wide steps. When she was at the top landing, standing just inside the tight entryway, he passed her backpack back to her and noted, “You know, I thought they were going to toss Fred and I out, too. I wasn’t sure we were in the right place.”

“Did it go away?” Hermione asked, just before pulling open the door to enter into the car’s corridor. “Were you ever sure?”

“It took a long while.” He admitted, “But yeah.” 

* * *

 They made their way to the car, and Fred shut the door behind them as they squeezed inside, blocking out some of the riot of noise reverberating in the train. Hermione looked around and saw that there was another young man in the car with them. 

Fred introduced the already uniformed boy as Lee Jordan, who made her feel quite welcome with his jolly smile and his offer of a few crisps. They were muggle crisps, the sort her mother never bought. Hermione couldn’t resist just one. 

Explaining herself, she added, “My parents are dentists. Well, my mother’s a oral and maxillofacial surgeon, but my dad’s a dentist.” Hermione bit into her crisp, quite enjoying it, “Crisps are not good for the teeth.”

“Sounds hellish.” Lee remarked, “Every flavor bean?” 

Hermione refused, only to have Fred suggest, “You might really like the pink one with the green spots.” 

Hermione took one bean, and bit into it. “It’s strawberry.” She chewed and swallowed, “It’s good.”

“You cheated.” Lee threw a bean at him, “You were supposed to tell her to take a blood one.”

“I said you could prank a first year with that.” Fred returned, eating the bean he’d caught and declaring it to be paper flavored, “I didn’t say it had to be the first one you met.” 

“Blood?” Hermione voiced, to the compartment at large. She hadn’t read about blood being a wizarding delicacy, though of course there were vampires. Maybe the bean was a flavor for their particular enjoyment. 

“Every favor isn’t a misnomer.” George replied, pulling a book out of his pocket. Hermione watched as he pulled his wand effortlessly from his sleeve, made a swooping motion, and tapped the book. Hermione, transfixed, watched as it grew to size in his hands. 

Hermione’s eyes grew wider as he opened the book, quite unaware of her attention. She thought, quite suddenly, of how many books she could now own.

No longer would Mum tell her she couldn’t have any more books because she had no where to store them.

No longer would books fall on her if she opened her closet. No longer would she trip over them when she stacked them in piles. 

No longer would they weigh a ton or would she be limited with how many books she could take to the house in France by British Airways or Air France.

No longer would customs agents mess with her organization during random searches. No longer would Mum chastise her in Gatwick for buying four more books at the airport. 

Hermione’s world had just been utterly and completely changed. She realized belatedly that she was staring with saucer eyes at George, and she looked away, face burning. He paid her no mind, and simply went on reading his book. 

Hermione felt she had to say something. The desire to know and to see was nearly all-consuming. 

“What…” She realized that her voice had come out as a squeak and that all three boys were now looking at her. Pulling together her self-possession, Hermione bit her lip, inhaled, and asked, “What spell was that? And when will I learn it?” 

George was biting back a smile, “Well…”

“I suppose…” Fred continued, “That we…”

George picked up the sentence, “Could possibly teach you…”

Leaving Fred to finish it. “If, of course, you’re interested.”

Hermione had read part of her textbooks. The spell wasn’t in there, and she had done her best to memorize everything she possibly could to give herself a better shot at even footing. She wanted to know what they were offering to teach her, but perhaps there was some was reason she should not yet know it. There had to be a progression of education. She knew there was a reason the spell hadn’t been in her book. Maybe she’d learn it second year. Maybe she could find the second year texts in the library.

“Nope, she’s not. I can see it in her face.” George remarked. Hermione couldn’t tell if he was teasing her not, “Totally uninterested. Shame.”

“Pity, that.” Fred noted, shaking his head, “The things she might have learned.”

“The untold troves of forgone knowledge, all in an itty-bitty travel friendly size and lightest of weight…” George started, with a sigh, looking at Fred and then back at her. 

“Think of the poor books that could have benefited from spending their existence in her clutches. Think of that one single solitary moment, when our intrepid Miss Granger spies a first edition Austen novel at a dusty book stall in Brick Lane, and has to put it back because there’s no room to carry it home. Poor Anne Elliot, left on the shelf, yet again.” 

 “Okay, okay!” Hermione blurted, “I can’t not know. I have to know. You have to tell me. What page is it on?” Hermione asked, in for a penny, in for a pound, “I want to read the techniques.” 

“A book?” Fred echoed, “Georgie, is this spell in a book?”

“A book she asks?” George pretended to consider the matter, “Why no, no I can’t say that it is, Freddie, my man.” 

Hermione watched them look back at her, and in her perfect unison, they tapped their temples. Realization dawned. They had invented this spell? Hermione hadn’t realized that people were still finding and developing new spells. In retrospect, she realized that innovation never truly ended. “Tell me.” She demanded, “Now.” 

“Don’t get your dander up, Kitten.” Fred soothed. Hermione normally hated nicknames, but she let that one slide, mostly because she didn’t want to call attention to it. He had likely not noticed the slip. Lee’s eyes were saucers as he sat on his seat, popping beans by the handful like he was at the cinema.  “Where’s your wand, Hermione?”

Hermione hastened to her backpack, and unzipped the top pouch, taking out the wooden box. “Just a second.” She opened the wooden box, and gripped her wand. She wanted to be very careful with her wand. She’d read that if it snapped, she would be out of the wizarding world, with no O-levels or A-Levels. She did not want it to break. 

Lee offered up a bit of advice, “Your wand is an extension of yourself. Keep it on you at all times, Hermione. You never know when you might need it.” 

And thus, Hermione learned her first three lessons in the wizarding world. She learned that not every spell could be found in a book. After all, Fred and George had combined a featherlight and a minimizing or maximizing spell, via new wand movements, and they were now teaching it to her. They planned to write a book of their own, one day. Hermione knew ambition when she saw it, and was sure they were well on their way to meeting that goal. 

She learned, also, that the best way to keep her wand handy was to stick it up her sleeve. There were pockets provided in the school robes, but it was better to develop the habit of keeping it totally accessible early. Soon, they said, she wouldn’t be able to get on without it. Hermione had frowned and explained quite extensively that non-magical people got on with daily life just fine, until they had conceded and apologized. 

Finally, she learned that Lee Jordan had a beautiful tarantula named Susan, who was the reason that Ron had fled the compartment. Hermione quite liked Susan, and made so bold as to hold her. Susan settled onto her shoulder as they all settled into conversation, Hermione continually practicing her wand movements, with Susan’s calm supervision. 

Susan scrambled back to the comfort of safety of Lee’s lap when a knock came to the door. A boy with a wide smile and a hesitant voice asked for help finding his toad, Trevor. Fred and George knew Neville, because their families were friends, and so Hermione found her social circle slightly enlarged as they searched for Trevor. 

Naturally, during her journey checking into cars, she met several other people. She met another pair of twins, Padma and Parvati. They were kind, and agreed to keep a look out for Trevor. 

She also saw Percy, who was in fact, strutting about with his chest puffed out as he attended to his duties as prefect, bustling and bossing with great zeal. Upon spying him, George broke out into a quick march, while Fred hummed appropriate music. Hermione did her best to smother her giggles, and informed Percy that they were looking for Neville’s toad, hoping that he had not seen, but surmising that he had. 

It was in the next car that Hermione was introduced to two third year girls. They were beautiful, and chatty, with trim hips, smooth stomachs, and even smiles. Hermione liked them instantly, even if she was in a little bit of awe around them. Girls, especially pretty girls, had rarely been kind. 

Katie and Angelina were, though. They couldn’t have been nicer, even if she was persona non grata because she didn’t understand half of what they said about quidditch. They, Hermione soon learned, were on the quidditch team with Fred and George, who were beaters to their chasers. She didn’t quite understand the idea of playing three games simultaneously nor of having a game that was totally ended by the catching of a single ball, but instead of asking questions like she knew she would have done with Fred and George and Lee, she retreated and let the conversation flow around her. 

Within minutes, she made soft excuses to Katie, and slipped from the compartment and then the car. Trevor had to be found, and Fred and George likely wanted to discuss the rota with their friends. When she slipped away, she heard their laughter echoing down the corridor. It rang warmly in Hermione’s ears, and the farther she moved away from their joy, the more she thought about their laughter.

* * *

 

Hermione learned Trevor had been located, and so she continued with some intention of going back to the compartment with her bag, to attend to her reading. She had meant to finish the chapter on Wizarding Education, and she did not to leave her reading schedule to languish. 

Instead, she found herself sitting with Ron, and his friend from home, Harry. They were the very best of friends, and they had a plethora of sweets wrappers all around them. Hermione hadn’t meant to join them, only Ron had insisted that the twins had taught him a spell. Hermione wasn’t entirely surprised when it didn’t work. He’d tried to turn Harry’s glasses yellow. He ended up breaking them. 

Hermione fixed them with spell she’d taught herself from the textbook, and refrained from showing them both the spell the twins had taught her. It was for their book, after all, and she wasn’t about to spoil the novelty of their publication. 

Instead, Hermione looked at Ron, and said, “You have a bit of dirt, just there.”

Ron rubbed his nose. “Ta, then, Hermy.”

“Her-my-oh-knee.” Hermione huffed, crossing her arms. Ron was ripping into yet another cake that emitted smoke. When he popped a piece into his mouth, smoke billowed out of his nose. Hermione was utterly disgusted. 

“Don’t mind him, Hermione…” Harry said, “Chocolate frog? I’ll start your collection of cards. I got Sirius.”

Hermione had heretofore ignored the hopping chocolates and the sound they made when their heads were bitten off. She wasn’t entirely sure it was vegetarian. Were they chocolate? Or did they have some froggy soul? She didn’t want to kill a frog. All the same, she took the box and the extra card he extended, “Don’t you want it?”

“I’ve got the real thing at home.” Harry replied, explaining that his parents had died, and that his godparents had raised him as their own.

Hermione saw that the man in the photo was famous for being exonerated from capital charges after tracking down the murderer of his best friend and his wife. Hermione let the subject go and instead asked Harry about what it was like to grow up in a primarily wizarding home. When he wasn’t gobbling sweets, Ron offered his insights. 

When the bell rang out to change into their robes, Hermione explained that she had to go get her bag, and set down her book, just as another knock came to the door. 

“Percy! We heard you, alright?” Ron let his voice drop just before the opened, “That git.” 

The door opened, and Fred zeroed in on Harry and Ron, “Have you seen…” 

As if driven by magnets, Fred’s gaze swept the compartment, and landed upon her. 

“Oh!” Hermione hastened, “Didn’t anyone tell you? We found Trevor.”

“I wasn’t looking for Trevor.” His tone was bland, but Hermione heard something beneath it that sounded like he was stating the obvious, which contrasted that something in his eyes that looked almost like relief. She supposed he might be looking for a person, though she knew it wasn’t her. 

“Hermione’s going to get her uniform.” Harry broke into the silence, “Why don’t you take her with you, Fred?”

“Oh, he doesn’t have—” Hermione assured Harry, only to hear a snort from Ron. 

She didn’t hold back her glare. 

Finally, at that, Fred smiled. 

“You don’t actually need to go get it.” Fred observed, stepping into the compartment, “Just summon it.”

“Summon it.” Hermione repeated.

“Yeah.” Fred affirmed, waving his wand. 

Within seconds, her bag appeared at his feet. Hermione reached for it, understanding now that he had been offering to get it for her. When she extended her hand, to pick it up from just inside the doorway, it vanished. 

“Hey!” Hermione spluttered, following Fred’s gaze. Her bag was in the rack above her head. There was no way she’d reach that, not even if she stood on the seat. 

“Fred, even a basic accio is a fourth year spell.” Harry interjected, “Just because you’re freakishly talented, don’t play games with her.”

“She can do it.” Fred insisted, challenge in his eyes. “Can’t she?”

Hermione’s eyes narrowed. Nobody told Hermione Jane Granger she couldn’t do something. She was honor bound to prove them wrong. “Show me how.”

Fred explained the accio spell, a far more basic variation of the spell he’d just performed, and gestured with his hand. Hermione copied the movements, focusing on the sheer determination she felt to show them, to show them all. She focused on how it would feel when the bag landed by her feet, and when she did, the bag began to move.

After two or three attempts, with Harry and Ron watching in frozen shock, the bag moved. A time later, it flew and fell in a thunk, graceless and uncontrolled, but it landed all the same. Hermione tucked her wand into her sleeve, ignoring Ron’s and Harry’s excited whoops. She looked at Fred, tramping down feelings of elation and something else entirely. “I showed you.”

“No, you didn’t.” Fred shook his head, “I knew you could do it. You showed yourself.” He rolled his eyes at the boys, who were jostling Hermione and making bold pronouncements about her powers and her house placement, “I don’t know why you’re surprised.”  

Hermione’s confidence, as she changed into her skirt and jumper and buttoned up the plain robes without a crest, grew. She was glad for her abundance of hair, for her pointed hat had a lot of places to grip, even if the bobby pins were a bit itchy.

 It seemed that, for all their challenges and teasing, Fred and George Weasley believed in her. She wasn’t going to let there be anyone on this earth who believed in her more than she believed in herself. That said, if she could choose two people to be in her corner, she knew it would always be them.  

 

* * *

 

Hermione’s head was spinning. She was a Gryffindor, along with Harry, Ron, Neville, Angelina, Katie, Parvati, a girl named Lavender, the latter two her roommates, and Percy. As well as, of course, Fred and George, who had cheered quite enthusiastically along with the rest of the house when they were all sorted. Everyone seemed most pleased to have Harry, but Hermione had seen George’s reaction to her sorting in the same moment that she had seen Fred’s response. She knew they were pleased to have her in their house. 

She was, too.

Now she had someone, several someones, with whom to eat her meals. Hermione knew, for the first time in her life, that she had a good chance to have friends. She  had been at a loss as where to sit, not out of lack of of choices like at the school canteen, but now out of a plentiful amount. She had never had people wanting to share dinner at school with her, before. 

Hermione was nothing if not loyal to those who had done her a good turn, to those who had been nice before she had belonged with them by virtue of affiliation. She squeezed in between Fred and George, who scooted over to give her room, across from Harry, Ron, and Neville. 

* * *

 

School wasn’t so easy as she had foolishly hoped and dreamed. Classes weren’t overly academically challenging. It was all a matter of logic, and Hermione was nothing if not logical. She had made her needle shine and become more pointed. She had the brainpower and the capacity to be top of her form. She wasn’t even terrified of Snape. After all, there had been laws governing professorial conduct. 

And yet, there were challenges of a social nature that soon became clear. Hermione finally understood her mother’s carefully phrased speech on cultural shock, cultural immersion. It was happening, everywhere she looked, and the other students she might have bonded with over this were leery of her. 

Ron and Harry were frequently in their own world, and she slowly came to just avoid them. It was easier than the alternative, especially when they were intimidated by her intellect. Naturally, with that piece of information, Hermione did nothing to change their perceptions. She even, with an old feeling welling in her soul, encouraged their beliefs. 

 Hermione constantly felt as though there was some joke she wasn’t let in on, even when the snickered and chortled at her.  She knew once she got the hang of things, things would be easier.  They just seemed to get on, and Hermione could not. They didn’t even have orange or apple juice, just pumpkin. It was the small things that made the bigger challenges tougher. 

Her roommates were not likely female friends and confidantes, or not the sort that she could explain how deeply conflicted she was feeling, and be sure of empathy and compassion. They nattered on about hair, and _Witch Weekly_ and clothes. 

While there was nothing wrong with that from time to time, Hermione tired of such banal discussions quickly and often found she had little to say to her roommates when her heart was so heavy with other feelings. The styles they favored were not things that were popular in Sussex. 

And anyway, Hermione did not know enough of Wizarding popular culture to discuss anything. Her roommates didn’t know who David Attenborough was, nor did they know any of the more popular music in her junior school. She spoke occasionally with Katie and Angelina and Alicia, but only insofar as their paths crossed.  

* * *

 

Hermione was still having a terrible time writing with quill and ink. She had to make several copies of each assignment just to end up with one that was possibly legible. She spent hours and hours and hours in the library, writing the same sentences over and over and over. She had lovely penmanship with a pen, or even a fountain pen, but these quills were birds of a feather altogether different. 

One such Saturday morning, she was yet again writing out an essay on heavy parchment using a sharp quill and a fresh pot of ink. Hermione had been huddled over her work for two hours, and had barely gotten through a paragraph without making a blot or smearing her letters in that interval. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fred once again returning to the table he was sharing with Fred, with yet another three books. The twins were always on the edges of her life, and part of her desperately wanted to tell them everything. She wanted to tell them how much it hurt to be excluded by Harry and Ron, by them, even though she understood their motivations. She wanted to tell them that she was scared of flying, that she’d been having nightmares about falling off her broom, and that she knew she was going to fail the next practical exam. She wanted to tell them that she missed them, even though they were right there. 

She heard the quiet murmur of George’s voice. They were working on a formula for something or other, what Hermione didn’t know. She wanted to know, but of course she had not asked. Asking questions made her vulnerable. George laughed at something Fred had said, and Hermione, distracted, knocked over her ink pot. It poured over her parchment, a inescapable river of failure. 

Quickly, she righted the pot. She shot to her feet, and grabbed the crumpled parchments she’d discarded to try to prevent the ink from spilling onto the floor. Hermione couldn’t help but sigh heavily in frustration and barely swallowed rage. 

She was trying in vain to clean up the ink when she heard footsteps. “Hermione?” 

It was George. She took one look at him, standing there so effortlessly, so crisp, in vivid contrast to her mess, to the bags under her eyes, to the smear of ink on her face, to the crumpled parchment in her hands and all over her table. She saw him taking in her mess, and she cried, “Oh, go away, George, do!” 

Fred arrived from the other side of the charms section as George regarded her as they might regard an rampaging elephant. “I can’t write with these stupid things!” And, unbidden, the quill flew from the table and nearly hit Fred in the face as he came to stand beside his brother. 

“Well…” George offered, “Have you tried holding it, and not flinging it about?”

Tears filled her eyes. This wasn’t a joke. “Just go.” She looked back down at her mess, “I’ve got to make sense of all this.” 

They didn’t go. They didn’t leave. They approached the table, and vanished the ink. George made short work of stacking her crumpled parchments into something resembling a pile, while Fred stared at the various cuts on her hands and cleaned up the quill and inkwell. 

“I just…” Hermione swallowed her tears, her chest tight with rage. “How does anyone write with these awful things?”

“Magic.” Fred replied, sharpening the quill in two strokes, rather than the countless bumbling movements that Hermione used, destroying several quills and nicking her hands in the process. 

“How else?” George added, putting a fresh parchment in front of the chair she’d vacated. 

Hermione squeaked. 

They looked at her. 

Hermione clarified. “What do you mean? I just write…” She sat down when they gestured, “And I end up with those disasters.” 

Fred smiled, and George gestured to a parchment they were looking over, “This one isn’t horrible.”

“It took me three hours.” Hermione admitted, “This way of writing isn’t sustainable.” 

George thought for a second, realization dawning. “Hermione, when you write, how does your hand feel?”

Hermione couldn’t hold back the deadpan she heard in her voice. She didn’t even try. “Like I’m holding a quill.”

“Does your hand feel different?” Fred asked, sharing a look with George.  “Heavy?”

“Or does it tingle?” George countered, “Does it feel lighter?” 

“Is there any warmth?” Fred pressed, “Do your letters simply come out without you having to feel like you made each stroke?” 

“No, why should it?” Hermione asked. “My elbow and shoulder hurt, mostly.”

Fred repeated, as though her question confused him more than their questions had mystified her. “Why should it?”

“She’s muggleborn, Fred.” George chided his brother. 

Evidently, it seemed, like everything else around here, they knew something by virtue of their birth that was denied her. Harry had once said that Muggleborn students weren’t at a disadvantage, and maybe that was true in the classroom. They all started from the same place. And yet, there was so much more to education, so much more to being at Hogwarts, than going through the textbooks. Hermione felt sure that unless a person was muggleborn, they wouldn’t see it. 

“I’m not laughing at you, I promise.” Fred replied, “We just thought Ron or Harry would have told you.”

“Why should they?” Hermione asked, completely confused as to why they would make any assumptions about her relationships with Harry and Ron. They coexisted with the barest civility out in the open. Beneath the surface, there was no lost love between them. 

“You’re always together.” George prompted, pulling Hermione from her thoughts. 

“We haven’t spoken more than two words in over a month.” Hermione admitted, “They seem to prefer it. As you say, I’m muggleborn, which means you always have to explain the joke, due to my lack of cultural awareness. I don’t like quidditch, so that leaves that out, and I’m terrified of flying. I’m a giant know-it-all swot, and they know it. They don’t much like me.”

“What do you mean they don’t like you?” Fred blurted, “And who called you a—-”

“Alright, let’s take this one step at a time, here.” George broke in, “Hermione, when you write with a quill, you have to push your magic through it.”

A lightbulb went off in Hermione’s mind. “My shoulder and elbow hurt because…”

“You’re blocking the flow of magical energy.” Fred affirmed, “You have to channel it through the quill.”

Hermione picked up the quill. She, at their instruction, closed her eyes and placed her inked quill to the paper. They told her to picture what she wanted to write, and feel her magic floating down her arm, and into the quill, perfectly forming those letters. When she felt her hand start to move gracefully, if haltingly, over the parchment, Hermione tensed. 

Their voices were soft encouragement in her ears, keeping her still and centered when triumph made her want to jump out of her skin. It was the most magical experience of her life. 

“Okay, your name looks good.” George encouraged, “Try your birthday.”

Slowly, carefully she wrote out the date, feeling the quill do the work she willed it to do. Her whole body felt light, as though she was letting her magic truly flow for the first time in her life. This, then, this power was what it felt like to be magical, to know from the core of her soul that she was a witch. 

She wasn’t left to her thoughts for long. 

Fred made an approving sound. “Favorite sweet? Magical and muggle, mind.”

On they went, one question at a time, Fred in her left ear, George in her right. They took turns asking questions entirely related to things she would easily know about herself and her life, moved the paper, and kept her centered and focused.

The only thing Hermione had to do was feel, and trust that her magic that drove her feelings was right and sure and true. Their questions grew slightly more complex, some requiring thought and a single word as a response, still others answered only by a small paragraph. 

So lost in her moment, so lost in the now, was she that she found herself shocked to hear George ask her a question at her left. “One last question.” 

Hermione knew instinctively what it would be, so she simply smiled, and said, “Sure, George, go ahead.”

Hermione let her eyes open at the sound of their shocked exhalations. She looked back at them, at once smug for having written so perfectly and surprised for having taken them off guard. Did they think she couldn’t tell? 

“I think I’ve answered you, haven’t I?” Hermione continued looking at them with directness in her eyes, “Funny, three pages of questions before you hit a stupid one. That’s pretty impressive.” 

Hermione watched them collect their wits jointly, and crack self-assured smiles. They came around to the side of the table. “Finish your essay, clever clogs.” Fred advised. 

George added, “We’ve got to swing by the common room, but—”

“Meet us in the Great Hall in an hour.” Fred finished. 

“But my essay!” Hermione protested, knowing that she wanted to meet them, but wouldn’t be able to do so. Never before had she so desperately wanted to toss parchment in the air and run after them. The feeling wasn’t new, but now it seemed far stronger. “I won’t be able to write it that quickly!”

“You’re a witch, Hermione.” George reminded her, “With very lovely penmanship.” 

It was only after they left that she realized one of them had taken her practice parchment. They, Hermione realized, probably meant to recycle it. It was really quite forward-thinking. Wondering what they wanted to do outside, Hermione turned to her essay with a contented and relaxed smile, copying it word for word from her spiral notebook.

* * *

 “Percy.” George spoke for the both of them. It was always easier for George to get meaning across to Percy. George was a bit more, in Percy’s mind, sensible. Therefore, both he and George weren’t above taking advantage of this misperception when the need struck. “We need the prefects lounge.”

“Absolutely not.” Percy replied, turning back to his paperwork.

“We need to have a family meeting.” Fred did not have the time for posturing. “ Now.”

Percy nodded. “I’ll get word to Ron.” 

“Harry too, please.” George insisted firmly. 

They gathered in the prefects lounge, and Fred warded it very carefully. Fred, when he sat down, looked at Harry and Ron, windblown and smiling. This wasn’t the first family meeting for either of them, and he thought that they ought to know better than to be so carefree about being called to the carpet. “Would you care to tell us all why you have been acting like rude, petulant, children?”

“What are you talking about?” Percy seemed bewildered. He had been, he said, keeping a close on them and he hadn’t seen anything.

“Percy.” George’s frustration was palpable, “You’re Prefect. Fred and I shouldn’t have to do your job for you.”

Percy continued, obviously choosing to his job as prefect rather than hit back at his brother. “Why don’t you both tell us all what you know?”

Fred’s words were cutting. “Does the name Hermione Granger mean anything to the two of you? All this time, we’ve thought you’ve been hitting it off, and here you two are, putting up a good front and ignoring her when you think no one’s looking.”

Ron colored, “She’s the one who stopped talking to us!”

Fred just bet she had, and he knew well enough why that likely had taken place. He wasn’t saying Hermione was perfect. She was annoying and rash at times, hyper-logical and aloof at others. And yet, because of that duality, she was nothing short of amazing. Fred wasn’t afraid to admit it in his own mind. George was the one who questioned things on their behalf. Fred trusted that what was now, always would be. It was merely a matter of growing up, and making choices. He wasn’t going to let Ron and Harry limit Hermione. 

George responded.“Did either of you bother to include her? Bother to say, ‘Oi, Hermione, how’s your day?’ or ‘Lovely weather, isn’t it Hermione?’ or even, ‘Hey, Hermione, I’m a bloody dunce, would you take pity on me and help me with my Charms homework?’” 

“We’re not obligated to be her friend.” Harry asserted, “Personally, I think she’s a right swot.”

“She is a scared girl, clinging desperately to the hope that she belongs here.” George retorted, “Did you ever think she might actually be a good friend if you gave her a shot?”

“She doesn’t need to prove anything to them.” Fred snapped. She didn’t. She had more power, more control over her magic, a more elemental understanding of their craft than anyone he had ever known. Her magic was fundamentally scary, as it was a vivid representation of her depth and power. 

Percy took the floor then, “You are not obligated to be her friend, but you are completely and totally responsible for behaving like decent people. Ostracizing someone, no matter the reason, is completely shameful.” 

Percy might be a idealistic suck up, but at least he was a genuinely honest idealistic suck up. He believed fully in the values he espoused, and believed that the traditions of their world were designed to upload those values. Fred hadn’t been able to tell him that selfish wizards who had less integrity had mucked those systems up over the years. 

Percy continued, “How would you feel, both of you, if Mum and Dad and Sirius and Remus were here? What might they say?”

 “I haven’t seen you two talking to her.” Ron snapped, turning his hot gaze onto them. He was clearly red faced at being called to the carpet. Ron got away with too much as the youngest. There had always been some excuse for Ron’s feelings of jealous and inadequacy. Fred only cared insofar as he stopped hurting others with his big ego and his small sense of self. 

“We’ve been trying to give her space, you idiot.” Fred snapped. “We thought she was making friends, and funnily enough, we thought you two were the closest ones she had.”

“We were wrong.” George added, “Very wrong.”

“What I want to know…” Harry mused, “Is why you two even care?”

“I…” Fred began, looking at George. What could they possibly say? 

George shrugged, “Look, she’s a twelve year old kid we promised to keep an eye on.” 

“Like Ginny?” Percy posited. 

“Oh, don’t be stupid, Percy.” Ron began, “It’s like you’re not even seeing reality here. Hermione’s—”

“A kid.” George insisted, “Just like me. Just like Fred. We’re all just kids.There’s nothing more that needs to be said except that she’s a person, and like any person, deserves the respect and consideration of the people in this room.”

“We demand your word.” Fred insisted. “Are you going to be gentleman?”

 “Yes.” Harry replied. Fred believed him. Sirius and Remus, if nothing else, had raised a kid with morals and a sense of caring for others. Why had he spent his childhood as friends with Ron, if not a sense of duty? 

“I’m not going to like her unless I like her.” Ron asserted, “But I suppose mocking her in classes isn’t the nicest thing I could be doing.” 

Fred was the one to shoot a look at George at that remark. George would be awash in guilt if he pulled his wand on his ant of a baby brother, no matter how justified.

George was right. They needed to bide their time, and not show their hands. Hermione deserved the right to discover herself and to discover if she could ever…

“The things we do now…” Percy said to the room at large, “Are going to have long term impacts. Be careful.” He looked at Fred and George, then, and repeated himself, “Very careful.” 

“God, Percy.” Fred breathed, “We know.”

“Potential is a terrible thing to squander.” Percy replied.

Ron howled with laughter when Percy’s glasses fell of of his face at the slant of his gaze. Everyone else was silent. Unlike Harry and Ron, they knew how badly things could go wrong in a single second. They remembered the stories. Fred thereby resolved to live every moment to the fullest, starting with a flying lesson with his and George’s favorite bookworm. 

* * *

 

After that first disastrous and undeniably enjoyable flying lesson with George and Fred, Hermione felt like things were on the upswing. She had a scarily brilliant and puzzling adventure on the third floor with Harry, Ron, and Neville after the former two had stood up for the latter.

For the first time, she felt like she was truly making friends, becoming part of a unit that was defined by choice. She had only truly come along to keep them out of trouble, but the adventure seemed to have created an understanding between them. There was no longer any true mocking or negative sentiment. They all had a grudging respect for each other. 

Her birthday came and went. There were, of course, the requisite gift from her parents of a charm for her bracelet, and a single pearl for her necklace that wasn’t yet done, as well as promises for a few books when she came home. 

Interestingly, there was also a single simply wrapped package containing another charm that came at dinner. It was a tiny silver quill that moved gently when tapped. Hermione put it on her bracelet, demurring politely when Parvati asked her who had sent it. There was no name on the box, and so it was a mystery for all of a day, until Harry’s Nimbus 2000 became the talk of the dorm. 

Hermione finally felt like she was settling in, finding her feet. Halloween dawned as a day full of positive hope for Hermione. It didn’t stay that way for long. After charms class, she heard Ron saying, “It’s Leviosa, not Leviosa!” 

Harry’s voice was obscured as he replied, but she heard Ron well enough, “She’s a nightmare! Honestly, if Fred and George hadn’t threatened to tell our parents that we were the ones in the wrong—”

Hermione hastened past them, tears blinding her. She didn’t even care if they saw her. Hermione let her feet guide her to anywhere but where she had been, and when she came to the wide sweeping stairs, she stopped short, invisible in the throngs of students. She watched as Fred and George called out, “Hey, Angelina!” 

Angelina laughed, and raced down the rest of the stairs, “If you want your notes, Weasley, you’d better come get them.” 

Both of the twins raced after her, moving so fast that they didn’t even stop and realize that the first year they had jostled in their haste to race after the pretty and vivacious girl had been Hermione Granger, with tears in her eyes, and agony in her heart. 

Hermione lambasted herself soundly in that moment. How could she have been so gullible and so stupid? She had thought herself to be making friends. Instead, she was being manipulated, the butt of yet more jokes. Only this time, the jokes had been meted out at the hands of masters. Hermione regretted laughing at every joke they’d told. Never before had one of their jokes hurt someone. She’d thought them too honorable for the sort of bullying cloaked in joking and pranks. She thought they were devoted to their craft. 

Hermione found her way to the girl’s toilet. Harry and Ron hadn’t been nicer to her out of genuine sentiment. They were barely tolerating her. They thought she was a nightmare, a living nightmare. And Fred and George. They had…they had made into her an object of pity. She wasn’t some helpless creature who needed boys with bright eyes and teasing smiles to make her problems go away. She could solve her own problems. 

Hermione took a dark and twisted pleasure in the fact that Angelina couldn’t even tell them apart. They would get what they deserved, in the end. Hermione closed her eyes, letting the tears flow. The progress she had thought she’d been making was an illusion, a joke to them. And yet, it had been reality to her, a reality that was now crashing down. 

* * *

 

George’s heart stopped when Percy counted the first-years, and one girl wasn’t among them. Harry and Ron were missing, too. Quickly, in the din, George called out, “Fred!” 

Fred had been checking the other lines, hoping against hope that three smaller persons would be lost in the rush and the frenzy. There was nothing, no sight of any of them. Rather than alert Percy, they took off running, following the desperation that was beating in tandem in their hearts. 

Of course, they were too late. They hadn’t thought to check the loos. They’d been certain that the only place Hermione might go instead of eating food would be to the library. Pince had docked points when he’d run through the stacks calling her name, and he had told her to take them all. 

Rather shocked, she allowed that she hadn’t seen Hermione all day. Even as a first-year, Madam Pince knew her most loyal customer. 

When they came running around the corridor, magic pulsing and their lungs tight, McGonagall was lecturing just outside of a totally demolished girl’s toilet. The three of them were there, a bit banged up and dusty, but otherwise on their feet. 

“Minnie, love…” Fred panted, joining the loose circle of students and professor, “Do we have competition?”

George drank in the sight of Hermione, whole and hale, adding, “Don’t tell us new pranksters have surpassed us in your regard, O Goddess of Wisdom divine?”

“You both will return to your dormitories this very instant. Curiosity killed the cat, you know!” She turned back to her youngest delinquents and intoned, “I will have no more of this. No more.” 

“If anything…” Harry replied, “It was a bonding experience, Professor.”

“Merlin help me!” She replied, but George knew there was a smile in her voice.

He saw what McGonagall found, too. Whatever had happened, had allowed the formation of a strong bond between the three first-years. For George, it had also made clear the nascent bond lurking his own blood. His magical core felt pulled tight, and his soul was screaming with the urge to demand to know she was well.  

The single ginger-haired student being lecture took in their appearance, and exclaimed, “Have you been running through the castle?” 

“No!” Fred blurted, “Of course not. Out for a evening constitutional, and happened to hear our beloved Min’s dulcet tones. Knew Mum would want a first-hand report of Ronnie’s wellbeing.”

In her most professorial tone, she took a look at Harry. “What Black and Lupin will do, I shudder to imagine.” 

Fred smirked. Lupin was likely to wring his hands while being secretly chuffed, and Sirius would clap Harry on the back, tell him good job, and advise him not to get caught. 

George took charge here, and directed a look at Fred. His twin spoke in his most conciliatory tone, as though they both weren’t hoping and wishing she would say yes. “Well, Min, what say we take your young miscreants back to to their dorms and give them some professional advice?” 

“Years of that have done enough.” McGonagall replied, “You may stop by the kitchens and tell them to bring plates of food to the common room if you are inclined to be helpful.” 

“Hermione, you’re a veg, aren’t you?” George asked. He knew full well that she was, that she said she liked broccoli, but that her favorite vegetable was actually mushy peas. She said she liked salads, but he knew from watching her that it was the dressing she enjoyed. Their various adventures to the kitchens had shown him a lot, as had the parchment he and Fred kept tucked inside the Map. “I have no idea what you bunny girls eat.”

Fred looked at him with widened eyes. This was not the plan. George was the keeper of the plan. And, as such, he was making an executive decision. He’d do anything to see her smile. Though she looked exhausted, there was a sadness in her eyes he was determined to banish. 

Instead of Hermione’s customary flush, she looked directly ahead at them, looked at them as though she couldn’t feel what they were feeling. George looked at her. She knew. She knew. It was just that she was choosing to ignore it. 

“Yes.” Her tone was clipped, frosty, and deeply wounding. “Whatever is fine.”

“Hermione…” Ron hastened, “You’d better go and get your own food. Who knows what they’d ask for?

She looked away, and addressed McGonagall, “I think a mug of soup will do fine. I’m honestly not very hungry. I’d like to go to bed, now, Professor.”

“Of course, Miss Granger.” Minnie was at once comforting her cub, “Whatever your motivations, you have had a trying day, haven’t you?”

Hermione murmured that she had, in fact, had a very long day. She apologized once again, and slipped away, never once looking their way, looking very much a defenseless kitten. 

Their kitten had claws that could slice with a single word. When she left with the Professor, Harry arched his eyebrows. “She blasted a hole in the wall and stunned the troll.”

“But then she said that we’d rescued her and that the troll had smashed the wall.” Ron breathed, “She lied. I didn’t know she could.”

Fred and George said nothing. There was nothing they could say. The facts were increasingly clear, and increasingly terrifying.

Instead, they focused on helping the elves to gather food, replenishing their own energy stores with three heaping plates of shepherd’s pie, followed by two pieces of cake and ice cream. They weren’t entirely sure if they were eating their feelings or refueling. No matter their motivations, the stool that was vacant across them from them hurt.  

* * *

 

She stewed for a a few weeks, avoided the twins with careful planning that was a hot topic in the dorms. Inclined to be a friend now, Ron had offered her some advice as she had helped him with his homework, “Hermione…” He fiddled with his quill. 

Hermione blinked. They’d just gone over the problem. He should have no further need for clarification or support.“Yes?”

“Fred and George aren’t…” He tried again, “We all know you’re angry over what I said, and I’m sorry. All they ever said was that we owed you respect. They didn’t say we had to be friends. You’re our friend because you’re you, Hermione. You did that.” Ron continued, “Not Fred and George.”

“I don’t see how my acquaintance with your brothers really matters.” Hermione sniffed. She did not want to talk about this with anyone, let alone Ron. 

“It doesn’t matter to me.” Ron admitted. “But if it matters to the three of you, you shouldn’t let anything stop you from being whatever the hell you want to be.” 

Hermione was silent.

After a long moment, she spoke. “Don’t curse, Ron.” 

* * *

 

Hermione had a plan. She set Snape on fire, after connecting him to Fluffy, and had saved Harry’s life. What did she get for her troubles? What, exactly? Lee Jordan blathering on about Fred and George being off their game because they were depressed to the near entirety of the school. 

That wasn’t her fault. That wasn’t her problem. If they felt guilt over their machinations, it was their problem. Hermione threw herself into researching Flamel. She had to keep Harry alive. She did not have time for personal problems. She avoided the twins. 

* * *

 

Hermione stayed at school for Christmas. She didn’t want to go to France. She hid in the library, totally convinced of Pince’s utter incompetence, and her lack of belief in confidentiality. The library catalog was horribly managed, and in Hermione’s mind, that said quite enough about the librarian. 

 Christmas Day itself came along with gifts. Her parents had sent something on her behalf for each of the Weasleys, and for Harry. Hermione left the gifts by their breakfast plates, and watched as Gred and Forge picked at their meals. 

Finally, as the whole remainder of the school was heading to a grand feast, George spoke from behind her. “Christmas is a time for family, Hermione.”

Hermione did not deny this truth. It was time to have this out. She’d really thought about it, and she wanted them in her life. She wanted to be there with them, and let them be here with her. But that did not mean that they got a free pass for manipulating her, nor micromanaging her social deficiencies. They could either accept her as she was, or not. 

 Instead she merely nodded, as Fred and George in their G and F sweaters bracketed her, and led her away from the crowd. Hermione knew people were watching as they retreated into an alcove. When George pulled the curtain, leaving them in a small space filled with light streaming in from a window.

It was clear they were waiting for her to speak, and speak she did. “But does family manipulate people? Make them feel so incompetent, like they can’t even be trust—”

Fred interjected, “What are you saying?”

“You think we don’t trust you, Hermione?” George clarified. 

It was fairly evident that they hadn’t trusted her to make her own way. She did not, she realized after much consideration, need or want to be treated like they treated Ginny. “I don’t need you two to make friends for me, or solve my problems.”

George and Fred shared a look. Between their single glance in the space of a heartbeat, it seems as though they agreed George would be doing the talking, for he offered,“We only want to be what you need, Hermione, whatever that is now.”

“Then just be with me, in my problems.” Hermione suggested. She had come to this conclusion over the long weeks of silence, “Don’t try to fix them. Just trust me enough to know that when I need help, you’ll know it.”

“It’s so hard.” Fred whispered, and Hermione had the feeling that they were talking about much more, now, than this single breakdown in communication. 

The past few weeks had been endless. She had buried herself in work, in righteous indignation, but those things were cold comfort when she felt more alone than she had ever had. No longer was her schoolwork the only comfort of her soul. Now she had people to laugh with, to experience things with, and missing her boys had only become harder and more painful in the aftermath of knowing the joy of quiet afternoons studying as they puzzled through some formula or other, and took her advice when she occasionally offered it. 

Full of thought, Hermione allowed, “I know.” 

“We miss you so much.” Fred admitted, “So much.”

Judging by the looks on their faces, this was an emotion that was known to them as well as it was known to her own soul. Hermione couldn’t change the past. She wasn’t sure she wanted to, anyway. 

Now that they were talking again, she began with the one thing she had wanted to say for weeks. The tiny quill had been a solace to her in so many ways. It had helped her to stay in touch with emotions and knowledge they three had found together. Every time she wrote her name, she heard them saying it in her ear, and she felt magic well. 

“Thank you for my birthday present.” Hermione’s fingers brushed her bracelet, hidden under her jumper. 

George smiled, “We wondered—”

“If you’d guessed.” Fred finished. “It made us—”

“Think of you.” George rounded their fluid shared statement off in only the way they could. 

“I have Christmas presents for you both.” Hermione replied, not bothering to tell them what they knew. She thought of them, too. 

“Later.” George promised, pulling her along into the Great Hall, where for the first time, it truly felt like Christmas. 

Squeezing between them on the wide benches, across from Percy and Ron and Harry, felt almost like the hug she desperately wanted.

 

* * *

 

After Christmas, things changed again.

She laughed when Fred and George teased Percy, and soothed Percy’s ruffled feathers. She joined the twins at their table in the library once again, and walked between them as easily as she once had. She relished their quiet words and their loud devotion to their art, even when she did end up with detentions. It had been worth it, just to see the looks on their faces when the Gryffindor Goody-Goody set off fireworks. 

Hermione cheered at Quidditch matches, joined the twins to abscond with food from the kitchens, and slowly built a rationale for the Philosopher’s Stone with Ron and Harry. She worked very hard to keep their research from George and Fred, who were more often that not, found pulling her from the library once she hit the 12 hour mark. Worse yet was when they joined her on these research binges, because they were too quick, and asked too many questions about what she was up to with all the books totally unrelated to schoolwork. 

They did, however, help her to easily break into the restricted section, without questions. It was the best gesture of trust Hermione had ever been given, and seemed to lay a stronger foundation for a relationship built on true equality.

They were worried for her, and wanted nothing more than to keep her safe, and yet they put their necks on the line without question to help her. 

 

* * *

 

It all came to a head when they went after the stone.

Sirius and Remus were summoned to the school, with Harry screaming to all and sundry that Voldemort was back. Hermione remained largely silent as Remus and Sirius lectured Harry within an inch of his very life, and then sobbed as they held him. She had sworn Harry and Ron to silence about what she had done down there, and begged Harry to say nothing about her involvement. She had let it be known that she had been merely there as a support, doing the logic portions, rather than providing the raw elemental magical power. 

In that moment, Hermione had never missed her own parents so much. Naturally, Molly and Mr. Weasley were there with Ron. It was Hermione who was alone. She knew that she could never, never, tell her Mum and Dad what had happened. They’d never let her come back, would never let her continue being magical when they realized she had so much power that it was almost totally uncontrollable. 

A gentle hand on her arm startled her. It was Ginny. “Hey, Gin.”

“Hi, Hermione.” Ginny replied, “We’re all hiding in the Prefects lounge. You should come.”

“I was sort of looking for…” Hermione cut off. She had been looking for George and Fred. She didn’t, of course, care to admit that to Ginny. It wouldn’t do, of course, to tell a younger and impressionable girl that even though she had just been responsible for getting Harry through his mission, that all she wanted was Fred and George to come and find her and tell her that she was safe. There was a duality within herself that Hermione was only just discovering. 

Just because she wanted comfort and closeness didn’t invalidate the truth of what she knew. She was powerful. She was powerful beyond even Harry’s wildest dreams, and Ron’s breathless wonder. They were both looking at her, ever since she had taken the lead, as though they had never before seen her. 

“They’re looking for you, Hermione.” Ginny replied, “I distracted them a minute. I just want you to know that I think you’re amazing.”

Scrambling, Hermione covered her tracks. “It’s Harry who…”

“Yeah, but you’re the one who tells him what to do, right?” Ginny replied, “You inspire me. You don’t let anyone trample you, ever. I know. I get letters.” 

Hermione was so very glad that Ginny had bought her story. Ginny, clearly, was referring  to her bookish reputation, and not the truth that Hermione had only truly discovered just recently. There was no way she could know anything that had happened in their quest for the Stone.  “Ginny…”

Thankfully, Hermione was saved from further obfuscation by the sound of a voice calling out, before they turned the corner, “Ginny, you said you saw…”

“You just might want to take that bit about not letting anyone trample you literally!” She jumped out of the way as two bodies came running down the corridor, after pausing long enough to see to figure out who Ginny was talking to. 

They pressed Hermione close between, and for the first time in hours, Hermione’s heart slowed. Her name was a whisper on their lips, and she was at once surrounded and enveloped in their embrace. Hermione pressed herself against them, feeling steady and stable for the first time in ages. There were tears in her hair, and damp eyelashes on her shoulder. 

Hermione held them fiercely until Mr. Weasley and Molly came out of the room with Ron. She seemed more shocked by what she saw in front of her rather than the conversation she had just left. Hermione felt much like she had after fighting the troll, only there was a deep languidly interwoven with her exhaustion. 

She wasn’t sure what she said when Molly greeted her, but she did know that she yawned. She suspected that, much like with the Troll, she would be hungry tomorrow after her tiredness abated. “Beg your pardon, Mrs. Weasley. I’m exhausted.” 

She was vaguely aware of the fact that her knees were weak, even though her blood was thrumming. Fred and George were easily the ones supporting her weight. Mrs. Weasley went white. 

“Mum—” George began, smoothing his hand down over Hermione’s shoulder.

Fred shifted when Hermione, aware that this conversation did not involve her, put her head against his shoulder. George deserved a break.“We can—”

“Now is not the time, clearly.” Mrs. Weasley broke in, holding up a hand. Hermione noticed without judgement that her hand was shaking. “Are you tired, Hermione?”

Hermione nodded, the idea of walking up those stairs to find her bed seemingly impossible. Before she knew what everyone was about, Mr. Weasley was instructing Ginny to help her to bed, and ordering Fred and George to the kitchens. 

When they parted, Hermione felt so cold she shivered. It was enough to awaken her enough to listen distantly to Ginny’s chatter as they sneaked into the Tower, and Hermione fell into an exhausted sleep. When she awoke the next morning, she found that her thoughts were clear and that she knew, deep in the pit of her soul, that she had to talk to George and Fred. 

Her research had been correct. Her feelings were correct. 

With something akin to dread and hope, she watched them load up her breakfast plate.They were a part of her to the point that they knew she had a headache that would only be cured by half a pot of overly sweet tea, and a bowl of fruit the size of her head. They knew, too, the conversation was coming, because they told they needed privacy and promised they'd talk after exams. 

* * *

 

 The time for conversation never came, between exams and packing to go home. 

Of course Mum and Dad found out about their trip to retrieve the Stone, and of course they were beyond scared and beyond angry.

Dumbledore had paid them a visit with McGonagall in tow. They knew nothing of the sheer magnitude of her magical output, but as soon as they mentioned not sending her back, they found out, saw it firsthand. Her magic flared, sharp, bright, and as sharp as lightening and thunder when they mentioned not sending her back. 

Her magic was volatile as they argued, and her uncontrolled rage shattered mirrors, windows, vases, and various other scatterable objects. Hermione felt entirely at peace with these actions, even though there was a thrum of worry in her mind. 

When her mother coldly brought up her detentions as further ammunition, Hermione felt a determination in the back of her mind that matched her determination. Her mother was saying to her father, “See, Matt, this is exactly why—”

“You don’t understand anything, Mother!” Hermione cried, papers spinning around her as she marched into the living room, “It’s like you’re not even using the barest scintilla of your intellect to try!” 

The Floo opened just as her mother came to the kitchen door, and, seeing who the fireplace held, Hermione moved towards it.

Fred looked at her, clearly not seeing the woman by the door. “If you wanted our attention, Kitten, you might’ve—”

George meanwhile, took in the destruction as he stepped over glass to approach her, gripping her gently, “You’re alright, Hermione. Aren’t you?”

Hermione noticed that they both had their wands out, in defensive positions. Hermione shifted her stance, disarming herself slightly. She wouldn’t want to accidentally hex them. 

The papers swirling around her fell limply to floor as George’s fingers brushed her arm. When Fred approached her, and brushed her hair back from her tearstained face, the magic that Hermione had been emitting for ages came closer to her body. It was volatile and edgy, but now she could visualize herself pulling it in her through her chakras, little by little. 

Hermione shook her head. She realized now that the emotions she’d felt in the back of her mind were Fred and George’s, not her own. In turn, they had felt her growing fear and anger. They’d responded accordingly. 

Fred sobered in an instant, taking in the scene before him. 

Hermione spun around in their arms when she heard a careful cough from behind her. She held her mother’s shocked gaze, realizing what it must look like, to her mother. Hermione stood there, a witch they had seen to be powerful even beyond their comprehension, flanked by two young men ready for whatever came their way. 

A shout rang out from the entrance, “Auror on scene!” He called out. Hermione froze, completely and totally, “Drop your wands! Wards are in place!”

“You can’t just come in here—” Mum began, moving away from the door even as Hermione called out to caution her.

Fred only grinned. “Why don’t you come in here, Sirius, and make yourself useful?” 

“Mum, no!” Hermione called, a shielding spell forming around her mother. “I’ll let you go when you promise to get behind us…”

Her mother’s eyes widened as Hermione dropped the spell, having heard Fred’s words and felt George’s careful murmur against her. Sirius Black, she agreed, would not hurt her Mum. Even so, Mum looked at her quite warily. 

“The window’s letting out the muggle…” He glanced at Hermione, “What do they call the temperature runes?”

“Air-con.” Hermione sighed, as a dark haired man stepped into the room, his wand dangling from his fingers as he stuck it up his sleeve.

“You’re Harry’s father!” Mum blurted. 

“One of them.” The man agreed. “The magical signature on this place…” He paused, taking in the tableau before him, “I think we’d better get your parents, boys.” 

Sirius took charge of the situation, soothing Mum and Dad, and fixing the worst of the damage in a single sweep of his wand. Hermione dreading facing the Weasley’s, and George and Fred knew it. Under her father’s eagle eye, they kept her close, their magics crackling between them.

She only hoped they still treated her with such tender consideration when she told them that they were a triad, and not a trio. 


	2. Summer 1992

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was editing, I noticed a slight reference to [this scene.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSw3i7FmGH0) I'm not the Bard. So, citing.

Hermione’s fingers were white, as she tried to explain again. “I blasted the Troll. I knocked him out. It was me.” Hermione insisted, “I was also the one responsible for getting Harry close to Quirrell. I kept him safe, and let him get close enough to…”

Hermione’s careful speech halted. She did not want her parents to know that, in effect, she had killed a man. Dumbledore said that he’d been dead since Voldemort had inhabited his body, but Hermione still had nightmares of his death rattle. 

“And you two?” Molly Weasley turned her harried and frantic energy unto the twins, “Did you know that she had gone into a battle without you? Can you even conceptualize the risk you were in as a unit during that time? She faced You-Know-Who! Can you even fathom what any of this means?”

Mr. Weasley took his wife’s hand. “Molly…” 

“Mum.” Here George pleaded with his mother anew. 

 Fred continued on, “Would you just—”

George begged, “Please…”

“Calm down?” Fred finished. 

Here glare softened somewhat as she looked at Fred. “I’m sorry, George, but I don’t think you’re totally in the know, here.” 

Hermione sighed, and painfully noted, “Mrs. Weasley, that’s Fred.”

“Right handy, she is.” George quipped, eating a biscuit. 

“Molly.” Sirius, the unofficial moderator of this meeting in her parent’s dining room, “I think perhaps you would do well to explain what exactly, using the most concise terms, what a triad bond is.” 

Molly sighed, and looked upon her parents. “You were told, of course, that your daughter is part of a trio, with Harry and Ron.” 

This they had been told by none other than Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall. 

“Yes.” Dad replied, “We were told that this trio was largely formed out of their magical affinity to perform larger feats of magic. I assume this triad is the same.”

Sirius choked on air, and buried himself in his mug of tea. Hermione glared at his immaturity, and spared Molly having to say anything further. “As the person involved in both units, I’d rather answer these questions myself.”

Mum accepted her assertiveness as a matter of course, “Well, Hermione?”

“They’re not the same.” Hermione replied, “They’re for completely different reasons. I can’t, obviously, explain as yet why I’m a trio with Harry and Ron, or why we’re bonded like this…”

She very well could, and she knew the magical adults in the room knew it, but they didn’t push her. She saw Fred and George exchange a glance, and wisely defer to her judgement. For this, she was glad.

Now wasn’t the time to tell her parents that her bond with George and Fred didn’t even have a chance of waning. It would only get stronger. 

According to Molly, she had never expected that their bond was this grounded, this rooted, this fundamental to their magical cores. Then again, of course, Hermione had not gone out of her way to tell Molly much of anything.

Hermione wondered why she knew so much. Perhaps it was cultural literacy. 

Hermione looked at Fred, and George before continuing. She had been doing a lot of reading on magical bonds over the last few weeks, and she wondered if, perhaps, she ought to have told them privately. She had been relieved when they had accepted her findings as fact, confirming what they each knew.

But now, now, she wanted to know how they knew. For her, it was a truth that simply was and always would be, even without the support of the evidence she had gathered over time. 

 “But in the case of a triad, the members typically have someone in the group that’s called the focus.” Hermione  did not say that she was her triad’s focus, or that she had figured it out hours ago when she'd realized that she had called Fred and George toward her side empathically. To the magical adults, this was obvious simply by their magical dynamics, and she wasn’t going to worry her parents with information they would not be able to conceptualize.

Hermione explained briefly, “This focus channels earth magics and their shared magical cores to preform larger feats of magic, not via each person contributing their own share on a very individually distinct level, but rather by tapping into earth magic and using their combined power and control in a way that is…” 

Hermione glanced at her boys, and thought for a second. There wasn’t a single word to describe the might and majesty of their blended magic, but she found one that seemed close enough, “Honestly, it’s rather cohesive.” 

 “In a trio, each person’s magic is separate and distinct.” George offered. "Rather like building blocks rather than a mosaic."

Hermione thought this a good way to explain it. With Harry and Ron, though they worked well together in the sense that they all played a part in whatever destiny they knew they now faced together, it was clear that their magics were only compatible in that specific situation.

With Fred and George, it was so much more, fundamentally, that the edges of their magic seemed to blur. It felt so different. 

“In other words…” Her Dad prompted, looking to the adults when he should have been looking to her and the twins. They were living this, and she was the one who had several notebooks full of research. 

Hermione thew her cards on the table, like she was throwing a grenade. She spoke her truth. “I can’t pull Harry’s or Ron’s magic through my own soul and bend it to my will as easily as I direct my own magic. And unless I really, really, focus, sometimes I can’t feel where my magic ends and Fred and George's begins.”

Hermione summarized, not adding that rather than being a single feeling, there were mental, emotional, physical and spiritual components. She did not add that the books described a full bond as a transcended state of enlightenment. Figurative language was not her forte. They had only just really begun to bond, and the most basic elements of their bond were not fully formed. 

She saw the look on her parent’s faces, “It isn’t that our magics have ceased to be our own, or that we’ve abdicated our own autonomy, it’s simply that we can each…”

“Actually, you're the one doing the real work, Hermione...” George assured her shocked parents, breaking gently into her rambling narrative.

“Theoretically, we could step up.” Fred assured her, “But please…” 

“Don’t make us.” George asked. “We’re unbalanced without each other.” 

“I don’t know about that git, but I’m more than happy to stand behind you and look pretty while holding our ground and your elements.” Fred smirked, “I draw the line at lugging around your compendium of Tolkien.”

“Just warn me if it’s fire.” George hastened, with a smile to the group at large, “We’re ginger. We burn something awful.”

“Fire?” Mum blurted.

Hermione grimaced. Her mother wouldn’t even let her light a candle, and here she was, telling her that one day, she might be able to make the sky burn. She was fairly certain that that part of the text was symbolic, but even so, the image spoke volumes. 

“Well, actually it’s congealed elemental energy, molded into a throwable shape via magical intention. Mostly they look like spheres.” Hermione assured her parents, only to realize that every other adult was staring at her in shock. 

Realizing what she had referenced, Hermione hastened, “One would assume! Theoretically. I wouldn’t know in practice. I’ve just read. I can’t actually…” 

At that, the Weasley parents sighed. Hermione reading anything she could get her hands upon, said young woman knew, was a fact of life for anyone who knew her. 

Fred started, “So would you all…”

George soothed, “Just relax, really.” 

“It requires further rituals.” Sirius interjected, addressing her parents, their confusion readily visible, “Ones that are entirely beyond the scope of this conversation.”

“Wait.” Mum held up a hand, “There are four elements. Does this mean your group will have a fourth? Perhaps Harry or Ron? Or are elements masculine and feminine, meaning that your fourth is a girl?”

“I’ll AK myself.” Fred muttered. 

“Impossible.” Hermione quipped in return, using the moment to consider the matter. It made her feel entirely ill at ease. She had never once thought about someone else entering into their bond, but she had read that in times of great turmoil, rare as groups were, they tended to the larger. 

“Not as impossible as getting the idea of Ron or Harry out of my brain, ta.” George replied, with a very theatrical shudder. “And really, I think one focus is enough.”

Hermione rolled her eyes at their antics and kept the conversation moving along, “I can’t, obviously discredit the idea out of hand, but based on present understanding of the nascent bond—”

“Hermione.” Her mother chided. Hermione knew she was once again making a very personal sensibility into an academic discourse. It was only when she looked around to collect herself that she noticed Fred’s eyes were guarded, and George’s freckles were brighter than usual, their faces hooded. 

Hermione shook her head, answering her mother’s question, and assuring her boys that they weren’t alone in what they felt, even if they all didn’t understand it well. “The idea of anybody else involved in this makes me feel sick, so I think that’s a pretty clear indication…”

“It is, Hermione.” Mrs. Weasley gently replied, “The issue here, I think, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what earth magic is. We’re not speaking of earth, fire, air, and water. Rather, it’s more like the untapped and un-channeled magic within the earth, that is beyond the reach of the average magical being.”

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves.” Sirius broke in, “All we need to focus on now is that the children are friends, and that, perhaps, one day, they will preform great feats in service to the their community.”

“You mean Hermione’ll blast Voldemort into a grave not even he can crawl of—” Fred clarified. 

“I do think Harry’ll have something to do with it.” Mr. Weasley quietly interrupted. There was something there, something that she had heard threads of when Harry made his confession. Hermione made a mental note to learn more. 

“Please…” George snorted. 

“He doesn’t even tie his shoelaces—” Fred scoffed. 

George boldly informed the room, “Without Hermione’s by your leave.”

Fred looked to Sirius, who looked like he wanted to laugh desperately. “As well he should.”

“Scary brilliant, that one.” George added, looking to Sirius. 

Hermione swallowed, their praise and proud glances sparking something in her soul. 

“Sirius and Mr. Weasley are right, though.” Hermione thought back to a long ago thought she’d shared with her mother, “Think of it this way. I have friends who I mostly understand and who mostly understand me on a fundamental level and haven’t run away screaming.”

Her mother’s eyes grew bright. That was all Hermione had ever wanted, all she had ever mourned never finding in her peers. Her mother had assured her very lonely little girl that one day she would have a host of friends, and perhaps one or two special friends who understood her as well as she understood them. It was the sort of thing you told a six year old who came home with torn tights and a splotchy face. 

Hermione had never expected it happen, but she knew her mother had never given up hope. And now, now it had come to pass. Her mother spoke, “Hermione—”

George broke in, a query clear in his face, “Actually, I don’t quite understand—”

“What about—” Fred hastened, leaning forward. 

Hermione sighed. “As I have told you both repeatedly,  _Neighbours_  is insight into the human condition!” 

“Actually, I was talking about—” George grinned. Hermione knew that they were trying to drive away the dark memories of being friendless and alone, by showing her just how much they valued her presence in their lives. 

Hermione wasn’t about to tell them she was on to their tricks. It seemed cruel. Instead she asserted, “I don’t understand why chocolate has to _ribbit_ in order to be supposedly tasty.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Mr. Weasley informed her, “It helps the chocolate to stay fresher, breathe, you might say.”

“See!” Fred insisted, grinning at Hermione. “We’re not certifiable!”

George pushed his tea mug forward onto the table more fully. “Our honor, Freddie, has been impugned!”

Hermione huffed as they began to call out, “A duel, a duel!” 

“As you wish.” Hermione agreed. She looked to the table at large, making no move to stand, “If I might be excused to defend the honor of House Granger?”

“Why not?” Dad waved a hand, “Go save the magical Kermits, Bunny.” 

Hermione did not find that joke very amusing. Her father’s sense of humor was absolutely twisted. Considering she was comparing him to the twins, she rather thought that said a lot. 

“Ha!” George called out, putting his mug and hers into the sink. He didn’t touch the tap. “Name your tourney.” 

Fred vollied, “Gobsnaps?”

“Chess?” George offered, dumping out the cup Fred passed him. 

Fred’s next idea was his favorite muggle game. “That muggle game with the popper?”

George made a sound of enthusiastic approval, and complimented Fred on his good idea. 

Hermione sniffed, as she stood to put away their placemats in the drawer by the coffee pot. “Certainly not.”

“Hermione.” They wheedled, likely unimpressed with her ability to make a choice. 

Hermione settled on the perfect game to pass the time. She knew that Sirius, having stayed because he was a font of knowledge regarding traditional wizarding customs and because his husband was a half-blood, meaning that he knew enough of muggle culture to act as a go-between in a very delicate situation, would soon leave.

Their parents clearly wanted privacy. “How about trivial pursuit?”

“How about we just concede defeat now…” Fred asked. She absolutely was tops at any form of trivia games, be they magical or muggle, as long as they didn’t stay into muggle pop culture or potions and transfiguration. The twins had the benefit of additional training and practice that gave them an unfair boost, and nobody knew enough about pop culture to even attempt those other games. 

George glanced out the kitchen door, “And go explore muggledom?”

Hermione glanced at the adults with the decision making power. “What about the library?”

“You three can have a hour and a half.” They eventually agreed upon it, allowing Mum to be the one to give this condition. 

The twins whooped. Hermione thought it was a bit much, even for a library. 

“And for the love of Merlin, don’t blow anything up!” Mrs. Weasley begged, “Mind the cars, and don’t talk to any strange muggles with sweets or puppies.”

George was the only twin to keep a straight face, “Mum, you do realize, of course, that the streets of muggle England aren’t crawling with paedos and creeps?”

“Well, how would you know? They could target you! You’re very naive!” Mrs. Weasley cried, “I read a report that home taught children—”

Fred sighed, “Don’t know how to talk to girls—”

George listed, “And have no friends—”

“We know.” The finished together. 

“What am I? A toaster?” Hermione cried, causing the room to chuckle. “We’ll be just fine.” Hermione assured Mrs. Weasley, “I’ll even make them cross the road in the right places and look both ways.”

Just to be on the safe side, Hermione asked them to hold her hand as they crossed the road. She figured Mrs. Weasley would approve. Fred did, though George said with a sly smile that the jury was still out. Always one to encourage data collection, Hermione slipped her hands into theirs as they crossed the streets on the way back. If no one let go until they came to her block, they were all of the mind that it didn’t skew the experiment. 

* * *

 

Hermione realized over time that she had inadvertently created monsters on two fronts.

Fred and George loved the muggle community. They marveled at the diversity, at the activity, at the movement. They delighted in every new thing they discovered, from the modern train system to the rubbish bins.

All summer, when they came to visit her, as they did almost daily, they got it into their heads that they wanted to see something new. A fish and chip shop. A John Lewis. A car wash. They met countless people, from the librarian to the guy busking on the corner.

Everywhere they went, they displayed a childish wonder and genuine curiosity that made Hermione glow. 

Hermione spent her entirely weekly allowance one week on various sweets. After rigorous testing, they declared Mars Bars superior to every other chocolate. Hermione weeped inwardly. German and Swiss and Belgian chocolate they declared just alright, but Aero Bars and Wine Gummies they roundly endorsed. When Dad came home from work, he chuckled, stole some Cadbury Buttons, and reminded her to get rid of the evidence. 

The second monster she had created, though honestly she liked this one just as much, was their newfound ease with her.

No longer did they hesitate to hug her, or brush her arm, or jostle her, or to hold her hand. It started and ended there, of course, but it was everything they wanted. To all the world, they looked like a group of friends having summer fun, but sometimes, when Fred’s hand brushed the back of hers own, or George’s breath danced along her ear, Hermione relished the hopeful secret of what one day might be. 

* * *

Fred was inordinately fond of the park. He liked to swing on the swings and loaf about chasing Hermione and George in absurd games of tag that lacked wand sparks and the crowd found at the Burrow or Grimmauld Place, but were entirely enjoyable in their simplicity and their informality. 

Hermione was lounging on a blanket, waiting for Fred and George to get back so that they could pack up and go home. They were expected to be home before Dad got home from work, largely because her magic fried cellular phones and her parents weren't giving her another expensive object like that only to fry it when she tried to call her Nan. 

“Well, well…” Mary Victoria strolled by with her posse of peabrains. “If it isn’t Ninny.”

Hermione’s back went up, both literally and figuratively, as she stood. “How was remedial maths, Mary Victoria?”

“Far more enjoyable than your school for emotionally disturbed children, I’m sure.” Mary Victoria’s chief courtier replied, “Are you getting the support you need, Ninny?”

“I’m excelling, as always.” Hermione replied, not bothering to hide her smirk, “Thank you for your concern.”

“It’s just that I don’t want you to come back.” Gretchen sniffed, “You’d suffer.” 

“Hermione?” George returned from the water fountain, popping his water bottle lid back into a closed position. “Who are your friends?”

“They’re girls from my old school, George.” Hermione replied, “They’re on their way to the pool, I believe.”

“You’re such a freak, Ninny.” Mary Victoria's cousin, Beth, sniffed, “Have you been stalking us again?”

“Actually…” Fred spoke from behind her, “I think the bag of towels and sun lotion is a pretty big indication of where you’re headed. Inductive reasoning isn’t stalking.”

“You missed the thongs and their radio.” Hermione smiled, “But good effort, Fred.”

“Whatever.” Gretchen sniffed. “Do you two want to come?”

“I’d honestly rather eat nightshade by the handful.”

“Bit sharp tasting, that.” George remarked, “I’d sooner go with monkshood.” 

“I’m so sorry I can’t come.” Hermione replied, “I have to go back to sacrificing chickens in the back garden and working on cloning vampires.”

“How do you like her first set?” George asked the two girls who had once once spread rumors that she was a satanist and spread the rumor that he school for gifted children was a school for children needing emotional support, “Personally I think the red hair is a bit much, but you know what they say about gingers, so I guess we had no choice.”

“No.” Mary Victoria smacked her gum, “What?” 

“We haven’t souls.” Fred deadpanned, looking almost mournful and deeply apologetic. 

“Freddie my man!” George chastened, “You know that’s a lie. Our hair is red because we feed off of the blood of unsuspecting people. We have many souls.” He looked right at Mary Victoria and Gretchen and added, “Theirs.”

“Right.” Mary Victoria rolled her eyes, “I bet you go to that freaky school, too!” 

“We did.” Fred agreed, all seriousness and congeniality.

Hermione was doing her best not to howl with laughter.  

“Some 600 years ago.” George added, “Would you care to come to my next Deathday party? We’ll have blood pudding!” 

The girls skittered away, stealing a look back every now and again. For good affect, Hermione waved. They ran. 

Hermione laughed uproariously along with her boys. 

* * *

 

The summer was magical in the most mundane of ways. Just as frequently, she spent time at the Burrow or Grimmauld Place, which seemed neither grim nor old. Harry said that his Moomy and Pads had done a lot of renovations in his infancy.

Hermione believed it. Harry had a whole floor to himself. His library was utterly impressive, and Hermione spent many a day therein, until Ginny pulled her into the pool. 

One muggle activity every young male wizard she knew loved was football. Football this, football that, football every time every Weasley male met a Potter or a Longbottom. If they weren't kicking a football, they were tossing a quaffle, or some combination of the two. 

Hermione spent those days in the library or in the fields surrounding the Burrow with Ginny and her friend Luna, or helping Mr. Weasley identify objects in his muggle shed, as he called it. He had any number of spark plugs and doorknobs. In any case, Hermione enjoyed telling him about mundane things. She wasn’t very good at working on the Anglia, but he said she would be a fine tinkerer in time.

She still couldn’t figure out a way to make him understand that rubber ducks hadn’t any real function beyond aesthetics. 

* * *

One night, two weeks before school was to begin, on a bright moonlit night, there came a tapping at her window. Hermione rushed to it, thinking it must be an owl with her school lists, somehow having gotten off track or lost.

Instead, when she looked out, she saw the Anglia flying in the air next to her window, Fred in the driver’s seat and George holding a map. 

Hermione gasped, hanging out her window looking out into her garden. “You’re violating the Statute.”

“We asked Dad to give her a cloaking spell.” Fred assured her, “Hurry up and get dressed. Idling wastes petrol.” 

The car wasn’t powered by petrol. Hermione supposed he thought himself amusing. 

“But you’re underage!” Hermione hissed, struggling into jeans without taking off her nightgown, the years of sports class having taught her something, even if the line test still haunted her dreams. 

“Kitten…” George chided, “We’re only borrowing it.” 

Hermione slammed her window shut, yanked the curtain closed, and finished dressing. Carefully, she left her window unlocked. She didn’t want to worry her Mum and Dad. After doing her best to tie back her hair with the ten seconds she allowed herself, Hermione jammed her sock clad feet into Doc Martin Mary Janes, and lifted the window. 

Fred and George were fiddling with the Anglia. Hermione said, “Budge over so I can get in.” She stuck a foot out the window to balance on the ledge, “I’m not sitting in the back.” 

Hermione leaped into the open car, and crawled inelegantly over Fred, nearly kneeing him in the process. Hermione wondered why films were always going on about romantic encounters in cars. It hardly seemed possible. Even just scrambling into the car, she ended up with the driving wheel in her back. 

Hermione settled, huffy and windblown, into the center of the bench seat. She looked between Fred and George, “Well. Have you two a plan or are we flying by the seat of our trousers?”

They laughed. George blinked, “Don’t muggles just ride in their cars?”

“Not at midnight.” Hermione primly replied, “What’s the real plan, here?”

“We thought we’d teach you to drive.” Fred grinned, “Since we all know getting you on a broom is unlikely, we figured you especially would like to try out a magical car.”

Hermione hesitated. She was a little bit young. But, then again, it wasn’t like there were police in the sky, and it wasn’t like she was going to encounter other cars. She considered the matter.

“Don’t tell me…” George began, “I never thought I’d see the day our Hermione declined to learn a new skill. Freddie, where has our girl gone?”

Fred slanted a look at his brother, “How can we be sure she hasn't been polyjuiced? Forge, what if I let an imposter Hermione crawl into our car?”

“I’d say you’re in for a real scolding.” George replied, “But no, I think you are saved! For I see the hallmark blush and the telltale smile.” 

“Oh, sush!” Hermione cried, willing that blush away. 

“Hermione!” They exclaimed, “We missed you!”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I assume this thing has a gas and a break?”

“Clutch too.” Fred grinned. 

* * *

And thus, Hermione Granger learned to drive, flying in the sky somewhere over the Southern UK. By the time they puttered back to her house, they were rolling with laugher and filled with easy banter and good humor. Hermione had quite a lot of fun, and in between learning to drive, she fiddled with the Wireless and got it to pick up a few muggle stations on the far reaches of the band. 

Hermione reached out and pulled up her window, George holding her back and Fred offering needless advice. Hermione yanked again, trying with all her might to get the window opened. She hissed, “It’s stuck! The wood’s expanded!” 

Fred’s voice was filled with mirth, “Well, are you a witch or aren’t you?”

“My wand is on my nightstand.” Hermione hissed, “Give my yours. It’ll work.” 

Hermione cast the spell to minimize the wood’s swelling, which she had learned from Mr. Weasley, with George’s wand. He’d slipped it to her in a rather fumbling, groping fashion. Hanging out a window was not the best way to take something, Hermione reflected. 

“Merlin!” Hermione wondering how on  earth she had accidentally locked her window. She had made sure to leave it unlocked. She might never have gone out at night before, but even she wasn’t that unaware of good practice. 

She cast the requisite spell, and breathed a sigh of relief when the window slid open easily. As she put one hand one the window ledge, the light in her room flooded her senses, causing her to fumble slightly. Consequently, the first sight her parents had of her was hanging out of a car, grabbing for a window ledge, with two young Weasley men holding onto her.

It was not the best tableau, she supposed. 

Hermione didn’t know what else to say. She blurted the first thing that came to her mind. “Did we wake you?” Hermione looked between her dressing gown clad mother and her sleep worn father, “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” Dad asserted. “But trust us.”

“You will be.” Mum continued. “All of you, park the car, get your stories straight, and into the kitchen.” 

Hermione burst out laughing as her father shut her window in her face. It was either that, or cry. 

* * *

 

“Here’s how this is going to happen.” Her father came to the point that he outlined the punishment he had referenced at least seventy-two times, her mother too enraged and beside herself to even form a coherent sentence that wasn’t completely cutting, “You two are going to take this note to your parents. And then you’re going to say goodbye to Hermione, and wish her well, because you won’t be seeing her until you board the train back to Scotland, hopefully in a better frame of mind.”

“That’s cruel and unusual punishment!” Hermione cried. 

Her father paused, “Will being apart kill you or otherwise render you incapacitated?”

“It’ll literally hurt!” Hermione asserted, unable to lie. It would be miserable, but a period a few weeks shouldn’t really mess with their magical cores. Their bonds were very superficial as yet. “Badly.” 

“Good.” Her mother’s tone was too chipper, “Pain is good for the soul.”

“Mum!” Hermione blurted, “You’ve written six articles in the last two years on pain management.”

“My patients, Hermione, are presumably good people, who don’t sneak out and go riding in cars with boys in the middle of the night, violating not only good sense but international statues of secrecy.” Her mother insisted, “They don’t deserve to suffer.”

Fred was never a voice of reason. And yet, his voice entreating. “Hermione…”

“Maybe now isn’t the time—-” George gripped her right hand. 

Fred finished,“To plead your case.” 

“My case?” Hermione stressed, shooting Fred a look that would render him dead if she could AK someone via glance alone. 

George continued onward, “We all messed up, but look, we’ll talk in the morning and everybody will be rested…”

“Oh, no you won’t.” Dad replied, “There will be no owls, no Floos, no visits, no roping poor Ginny or Ron or Harry into delivering clandestine missives. If you’re dying, either of you, or otherwise in dire straights, you may send word through Percy.”

“Percy!” Hermione cried. Her father must think himself very amusing. 

Her mother added, “Oh, and you can’t borrow Kreacher or any other poor magical creature you can cook up.”

Hermione muttered. “Are smoke signals exempt?”

“No, but thank you for your inventive thinking.” Dad replied, “Now the question and answer portion of our program is over, and so we proceed into the farewell portion of the show. So sad, but such is life. Every joyride must have its end.” Dad glanced between them, ‘You have a minute.”

A minute? “Dad!”

“Be glad I factored in your unique circumstances, or else you would have shared a half minute between you all.” Dad replied, “56 seconds.”

Hermione really, really, wanted to stop the clocks. She could, too, but she figured her parents would notice time passing, and she wasn’t trained in memory charms. “You’re being terribly draconian, you know.”

“And maybe the next time some dapper young men show up with their slick ’58 Ford, you’ll stop and think, ‘Hey, maybe getting into the car isn’t the smartest thing.” He glanced at his watch again, “49 seconds.”

Hermione made to to the door before he called out the next interval. Hermione had one question for the young men on her heels. “What does the note to your parents say?”

Hermione stared down at the note in Fred’s grasp. It was closed, and signed over the flap. They didn’t have the time to tamper with it. Hermione accepted her fate, and pulled her boys to her, breathing in their woodsy scents, grass and parchment and something uniquely them. 

After they had gone, and the car had flown off, Hermione returned to the kitchen, to find her parents sitting down with a cup of tea and a lemon pound cake. Hermione stared, “You’re having tea?”

“No, my poor inmate.” Her father replied, pushing to his feet, “You and the Governor are going to have a chat. I’m for bed. I’ve teeth to clean, and tooth fairies to bribe.” 

* * *

 

Hermione sighed. “Mum, I’m just going to go to bed, okay?” 

“Sometimes, I think, Hermione.” Mum ignored her announcement and gestured to the chair across from her. Hermione grudgingly sat.  “That magic has taken a precocious little girl wise beyond her years and accelerated her development. I used to think it was boarding school, but now I see that this mature young person is who you are.”

“There is a period of rapid growth brought on typically by a person growing into their magical capacity. With males, it tends to be physical and happen in the mid-teens. With females, it tends to be more mental than anything else, though ages vary. It’s why you see a disparity of maturity levels among young witches so readily.” Hermione allowed, “But what are you trying to say?”

“That if you’re going to be a big girl, Hermione.” Mum replied, “Then you need to understand that grown up choices have grown up consequences. I’m not stupid, and I know you wouldn’t do anything, but I am saying this and only this: pace yourselves.”

Now was not the time for yet another horribly frank discussion of sex. Mum had always been open with her, but this summer, her mother’s normally easy manner had faded. “Mum…”

“You know, I asked Molly of all people which of the twins she thought you would marry.”

Hermione had not told her parents about these sort of unconscious bondings traditionally becoming romantic, and thus ending in some form of plural marriage. Sometimes, if there were four people, they paired off two by two, for romantic and sexual bonds within quads were often fairly monogamous. 

Triads were a little more complicated. Hermione had very little doubt, even now, that it was likely that she would end up as the center of a marriage based in fraternal polyandry, though that was ages and ages away. She didn’t even want to date the twins.

She just wanted to be with them, in their company, which her parents had barred from her like she was one infectious. 

“It isn’t like that. Our relationships, our dyad, isn’t some lust filled sordid—” Hermione crossly at her mother, “You of all people—”

 “I know that, you know that, everyone knows that, Hermione. It isn’t what it is now that matters so much in this situation. Whatever your dynamics, leaving this house with explicit permission is not okay. Also, as someone who obstenably plans to spend her life in some way with those boys, you owe them the respect of not putting them in the position you did.” 

Hermione accepted this, and ate her lemon cake in silence. As her mother sipped her tea, Hermione felt those same eyes on her face. “What?”

“I should ground you for making Molly be the one to explain fraternal polyandry to me.” Her mother grinned, “That poor woman.”

Hermione felt no guilt. She should have taken her own advice, often imparted to a blushing and stammering Hermione. If her mother didn’t want to hear the answer, she shouldn’t have asked the question. She looked gamely back at her mother, “I don’t suppose she explained partible paternity, did she?”

“Quoted some Celtic wizard with all her blood in her face.” Mum returned. “Dad and I always knew we’d love you no matter who you brought home, but we rather were picturing a penniless artist named Lisa when we made that promise.”

Hermione laughed gently, “Why are we even talking about this?”

“Because I want you to know, Hermione, that you can talk about this.” Her mother asserted this gently, “Always, anytime, anything. You may be the only polyandrous person I know, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped wanting very much to have open lines of communication with you about what you’re thinking and feeling and doing.” 

“I could end up being monogamous.” Hermione speared her cake. “Nobody’s even thinking about those things, yet.”

“Hermione.” Mum prodded gently, “Honestly, I don’t believe you for a single second. You could end up in a monogamous relationship, sure. You always make the choice for your own life and happiness. But tell me, which of your boys would you leave out?”

Hermione gulped her tea. “Mum.”

“I've seen something of the world, Hermione.” Mum reminded her, “While my practical experience in these relational dynamics are limited, I am, first and foremost, here for you. I don’t want secrets between us.”

Hermione considered this. “What does this have to do with learning to drive?”

“Everything is rooted in good communication.” Mum replied, “Remember that. Now off to bed with you.”

* * *

 

The first three days went by in a haze of indigent determination. And then, on the forth day, she woke up in the middle of the night and thought, _when I see George tomorrow, I need to remember to tell him that I finished that Rewbly novel._

She slammed her pillow into submission and rolled over. Just before she fell back asleep, she thought, _I have to tell Fred that he left his Quidditch jersey here._ When she remembered that she would not see them, she felt sick. 

She finished her summer assignments, cleaned her bedroom, and sorted her books. She spent days in the garden, weeding and pruning.

Hermione knew in her heart of hearts that she was using a frantic sort of energy to get through her days. For the first time in a long time, she was fundamentally lonely. Still, she was accomplishing things and took solace that even her emotional uneasiness did not hamper her ability to focus. She didn’t need men to give her life meaning. 

By the end of the first week and four days, Hermione realized that she had spoken to her parents beyond the basic fundamentals in days.

Her father had just finished telling her mother a story about a child he had worked on that day, when Hermione broke into their conversation, “This week I’ve finished my summer assignments, cleaned my room, and my loo, organized my bookshelves, and cleaned out the pantry cupboards and tended to the garden.” Hermione came to her point, “I’d like to go to London in order to buy my books.”

“Bunny—” Mum replied, “I don’t expect that you should turn yourself into a house elf.” 

Mum was quite fond of Kreacher. Whenever he visited, she bade him to sit in the easy chair and read magazines. He thought it was quite pointless, but made an effort for Mum's sake. 

“I’m utterly and totally bored.” Hermione replied, “And I’d like my books so that I can make outlines and prepare for the coming year. I’d send for them by owl, but we don’t have one, and I haven’t gotten any letters to use an incoming owl.”

“We’ll go to London tomorrow, Hermione.” Mum offered, “We can make a day of it.”

* * *

Hermione couldn’t make heads or tails of her mother’s behavior. Hermione had finished her selections, picked out her textbooks, and there her mother was, loitering in the magical cookery section, looking at cookbooks that were, to her, entirely blank. 

Hermione considered pointing out the obvious. Instead, she peered at the page, and mildly observed, “Do you like fowl, Mum?” 

“Delicious.” Mum affirmed, never mind that she was almost-vegetarian, except for an occasional fish dinner. She wanted to be vegetarian like Hermione, she said, but fish and chips and chicken tikka were her comfort foods. Considering her job, Hermione did not begrudge her this outlet. It was a far better choice than ketamine or morphine theft or her former macrame obsession. 

“Shall we go?” Hermione prompted, “You did want to go to visit other shops, you know, with items you can actually see…”

“Funny.” Quickly, Mum’s demeanor changed, and she pointed to her left, directing Hermione’s attention to the bookcases, “What does that cover say, Hermione?”

“Um. _500 Ponderous Persimmon Pottages._ ” Hermione offered, looking back her mother, “By Connie Cooker.”

“Molly tells me she’s akin to Della Smith.” Mum observed, “Can you find her most popular baking text and look up the chocolate cake?”

Hermione bent down to locate the book, “Mum, we haven’t a magical oven. They’re very different, you know. They’re more convention based, and I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

Her mother was overly optimistic, and though Hermione didn’t understand her motivations, she  scanned the shelves in the relatively vacant cooking section. 

She proceeded to locate the book, and standing, flipped to the index. There was chocolate everything, from Atlantian Arrows to Zxung Zippies, but there was not a plain chocolate cake to be found in the entirety of the section. Hermione tried the cake heading, and the cupcake heading, and found nothing. 

Mum shook her head. “It has to be there.” She shook her head, “Molly told me, you know, and she was very clear about the recipe’s quality. Perhaps you should go ask at the desk?” 

“Mum.” Hermione sighed.

“Well, I can hardly do it myself. The text is invisible to me.” Mum’s tone said she would brook no nonsense. 

Hermione begrudged having to mix in with the crowd of students buying books, but did as she was told, lest she increase her grounding until her graduation day. Hermione stopped in the center aisle, scanning the crowd for the end of the line to the desk.

She saw two fourth year Ravenclaws ahead of a Greengrass sister, and knew she had found the line. Hermione then followed it to the end. In doing so, she spotted a small girl with red hair. Hermione was moving towards her before she knew what she was about, gently grabbing her attention and her arm.

Hermione hauled a grinning Ginny into the narrow book aisles. “Her—” Ginny began, until she noticed Hermione’s frantic shushing motion. 

“Ginny.” Hermione came to her point knowing that her mum could be anywhere. She wasn’t going to talk to the twins, she just wanted to see them. “Who brought you shopping?”

“Mum.” She intoned, a look of confusion crossing her face. “Who else would jump at the chance to bump into you?”

“Ginny, don’t tease.” Hermione sighed, “Can you at least…”

“I’m not carrying any messages to Fred and George.” Ginny shook her head, “They’ve been total bears, you know, holed up in their room exploding things all hours of the day and night.”

Over the din of the crowded bookstore, Hermione heard a voice. It was Molly’s voice, saying, “—clever we are, Miranda.” 

Hermione smiled serenely at Ginny. “Would you be so kind as to take this book back to my mother and tell her there is no chocolate cake in this book?”

“She was stalling because we were late and you were early. I’m meant to tell you. The twins don’t know, either.” Ginny revealed, clutching the book to her chest. “She and Mum worked out a cover story. I didn’t think you’d buy it.”

Hermione lied and assured her, “I didn’t.”

Ginny heckled her, “Sure you didn’t!” 

* * *

Hermione wove through the bookstore, cutting past the sporting section, and down through the children’s section. At the back of the shop, she found the rest of her dyad mulling over potions texts. Hermione saddled up to the side of the section, saw the title out of the corner of her eye, and whispered, “I hope you don’t intend to buy a book you already own.”

She waited 2.3 seconds, until the book fell to the floor and she was stepping forward into their arms, their auras melding on the edges as she breathed in their woodsy scents. Nobody said anything for a long moment. Of course it was Fred who broke into the silence, “Merlin, that was worst week and five days ever.” 

“I don’t think we’ll be making this a yearly thing.” Hermione remarked. “What’s this I hear about you blowing up the Burrow? You can’t have missed me that badly.”

“Don’t bet on it, Kitten.” George replied, “We’re working on a few experiments. We’ve come up with a business proposal we want you input on.”

Hermione had a geniune question. “What business could come out of blowing things up?”

“Just you wait, huh?” Fred smirked. “We’ve agreed to let you read our outline without knowing our opinions.”

“But we have to tell you—” George admitted, “it seems like a very positive venture.” 

“That if it goes well—” Fred interjected, "it'll make us loads." 

“I’ll put it on the top of my book pile.” Hermione rested her head against George’s chest, and brushed her hand along the flat planes of Fred’s own heart. She was content to feel their hearts beat in tandem with her own, “We should go find your mum, and mine.” 

Fred sighed, and stepped back, just as Hermione saw the swirl of robes come around the aisle. “Granger.” Draco Malfoy sniffed, “And the twin weasels. Interesting.”

“Eat slugs, Malfoy.” Hermione rolled her eyes, and walked away. That boy was gum on her shoe. She could blast him into bits with the blink of her eyelids. There was no point to worrying about him. 

When she walked to the front, Harry was being cornered by the new DADA professor. From behind her, George muttered, “Charlie says that guy’s a total loon.”

Fred took his place behind her, and to her left as George was to her right. “Looks a bit poncey to have done all the things he said he did.” 

“We shouldn’t judge by looks alone.” Hermione muttered, “I’ll be looking into his books, though. You can be sure of that.” 

Seeing her chance, she hurried to Ginny’s side just as Harry was giving Ginny his set of Lockhart books. When slipping in next to her, Hermione jostled into Lucius Malfoy, who sneered at her.

Hermione didn’t offer any apology beyond a smile, and cheerfully asked Ginny if she could see the books. Ginny handed her the cauldron she’d been holding, and turned to take the books from Harry. When Hermione moved to give the cauldron back, she noticed a small black book in the pot. Hermione grabbed it, and headed back to Fred and George, having realized that she had her own copies of the books, and did not wish to be in the photographs. 

She flipped it open. It was clearly a blank diary. Hermione thought she might buy it to record notes in, as it seemed almost enchanting in some way. Moving past Malfoy, She added it to her pile, and paid the equivalent of £12.45 for it.

It seemed interesting, and so she was glad to have it. Hermione tucked the receipt inside the front cover, and went along to join the happy crowd. 

* * *

After buying books, it was decided that they would proceed to Fortescue’s for ice cream. Hermione thanked her mother, knowing that she had been let off of her punishment early. She merely winked, and returned to her klatch with Mrs. Weasley. It seemed so odd for her mother, a very brainy and work focused woman, to have so much to say to Mrs. Weasley. She wondered what they might have in common. 

Hermione wedged her way onto the bench between the twins, shoving gently to get enough space. “Less than two weeks and I’m forgotten, utterly forgotten, I tell you.” She muttered, teasing them until she was comfortably settled. 

“Why do you always sit like that?” Ginny asked, at once perceptive and teasing her brothers. Hermione hoped she would always be so joyful. “In a row, exactly like that, always.” 

Hermione blinked. “I guess it’s because this way, we don’t dig into each other.” Hermione waved her dominant hand, which neither bumped into Fred or took up George’s space. “And…” Hermione added, sticking her spoon into Fred’s sundae when he wasn’t paying attention, “I get to steal their food and no one suspects me. They just think they’ve eaten it.”

“Hermione…” George gently burst her bubble, “Did you really think we didn’t notice?”

She just grinned, and declined a bite of his own sundae. “It’s no fun to prank you if you’re watching me.” Hermione primly noted. Quickly, she feigned surprise, and pointed, “Is that Lee?”

George’s head turned back to her just as she was putting her spoon in her mouth. The butterscotch was quite good, but her own confection was the best. She turned her spoon around her mouth as Ginny laughed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're heading into AU territory. 
> 
> Miranda should have said polyamorous, but the term wasn't in widespread use in 1992, a mere two years after its coinage, so she uses polyandrous, relating to marriage. Her shift from an anthropological viewpoint to 'hey, my kid is dating two boys...' will mirrored in her linguistic changes, when the dating bit comes up.


	3. 1992-1993 School Year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is CoS with a few notable changes. We end up in the same place, only the road taken is vastly different. I did fiddle with the timeline, but all other changes should be readily apparent.

 

Hermione walked through King’s Cross confidently, spotting the occasional person out of the corner of her eye as she peered over the top of her book. She smiled when acknowledged, and continued on, lagging slightly behind her parents, allowing them to cut a swath through the crowds.

They were running late because the traffic had been horrible, but traditions were meaningful, and staring at the pages of a novel hardly impeded her progress. 

She made her way through the portal onto the platform with her parents in tow not seven minutes later. While her father headed over the porter to stow her luggage, Hermione bid her mother a quick but heartfelt goodbye, and hugged her father tightly as the train whistled for the final time. 

Hermione ran down the platform, the porter having closed up the closest entrance onto the train. Just as she was coming close enough to the stairs to reach out for a railing, a very welcome person leaned out and grabbed her easily by the wrist, hauling her onto the steps.

When she was safely in the doorway, Hermione turned and waved at her parents, Fred and George doing the same behind her. To her left, Fred began, “We thought maybe Miranda and Matt had shipped you off to Salem Witches’ and you weren’t coming.”

Hermione pointed out the absurdity of this assertion, “You saw me yesterday.”

“Yeah, but Mum and Dad had all sorts of problems with the Platform and the guards had to Floo the school about it to get it fixed.” Fred allowed, “And we knew you’d sooner leave school than be late on the first day.”

“You’re both absurd.” Hermione expressed this reality fondly, “The portal was fine when I got here. Do you have a compartment?”

“And a slew of Mars Bars and Chocolate Buttons for the chocolate enthusiasts amongst us.” George excitedly noted. 

When Fred noticed her expression, he nudged her gently, “We got Miss Picky some Pick n’ Mix from Woolworth’s last time we were there.” 

“You didn’t have to—” Hermione was cut off by the opening of the compartment door. Clearly, the twins didn’t want to hear it. 

“Hermione!” Lee’s voice called out when hey entered the compartment, “How was your summer?”

“Fine.” Hermione elaborated, “I read a lot, organized some ethnographic studies exploring wizarding adaptations to muggle communities.”

“You took them—” He goggled at Fred and George, “Out into the muggle world?”

“We all live in the same world, on the same earth, Lee.” Hermione replied, “But yes, we did do a bit of adventuring this summer.”

Lee cracked a grin, “So, how’d they do?”

“Honestly?” Hermione smiled. She was just teasing. They, for people who had exactly zero exposure to mundane life, had adapted wonderfully. She had been continually humbled by their desire to understand things she had long ago dismissed. 

They had taught her so much in a single year. 

Fred shot her a look, ripping into his Mars Bar. “Hey, you said—”

“That you were proud of us, and—” George hastened. 

Fred finished their pronouncements off, “No one noticed—”

Hermione ignored the twins, and addressed Lee. “They got the hang of things pretty quickly.”

Fred cracked a grin, “We did yell at a bin to eat the rubbish.”

“And some lady thought we were barmy. Who knew muggle bins don't eat the rubbish?” George laughed, thinking of that poor scandalized woman, no doubt. 

Hermione informed them of the woman’s muttered assertions as she’d scrambled away, “She thought you’d been doing crack.”

Fred pulled a thinking expression, drawing his lips to one side of his face as he considered his knowledge on the aforementioned subject. “The muggle drug that’s also known as cocaine?”

“That’s the one you inject, Gred.” Forge noted. “Or snort.”

Lee was scandalized, his voice cracking with amused horror. “Hermione!”

Hermione stared back, “What?”

Lee was looking at her like people looked at Susan. “You gave them vocabulary lessons detailing street drugs?”

“Mrs. Weasley was worried for their safety.” Hermione pulled out her book, “I simply empowered them to make informed choices.”

She had given them a crash course in Muggle Studies, ranging from telephone usage to crossing the street, to handling muggle money. They still thought the exchange rates absurd. 

“I’m sure she didn’t mean teaching them about cocaine.” Lee told her, petting Susan with some consideration and sly mirth. 

“Semantics.” Hermione returned, burying her nose in her book as the boys discussed their summers. 

* * *

 

Hermione passed the rest of the train ride sitting sideways on the banquette, reading her book.

She assumed that Harry and Ron were off with Seamus and Dean and Ron and Neville. In any case, she relished the solitude that came when her boys scampered off with Lee to do whatever it was they wanted to do. 

Hermione had a bit of girl’s time with Susan, and immersed herself in a Betty Neels’ novel, relishing the moment when poor Britannia, a hardworking, sensible but plucky office girl, met a closed-off and yet obviously perfect for her doctor of some fortune and good name on a shabby but genteel street in London during a rainstorm.

By the time the handsome surgeon had confessed his love, Britannia had come into her own and given her evil mother a talking to and put her spoiled sister into her place, happily swanning off to Friesland in order to run the Professor’s life and take daily marital forays to Brighton.  

It was altogether a satisfying read, totally perfect for a ride on a magical train with a a bag of pick n mix on her belly, and a tarantula on her shoulder.

After changing into her uniform and robes, Hermione reasoned that she ought to go and find Harry and Ron. She was prevented from doing this until Lee came back to collect Susan, because Ron would simply faint if she saw Susan perched happily on her shoulder. 

Lee, of course, was distracted by his antics, and came running back to the compartment with Fred and George to change. Guarding Susan’s maidenly modesty, Hermione accompanied her into the hall to wait until the gentlemen in the carriage were decently attired. By the time Susan was back in Lee's tender care, Hermione noticed they were pulling into the station. 

There was no help for it. She collected her carry-on, and accompanied George and Fred to a carriage, knowing that the carriage was pulled by thestrals she could not see. They bumped along to Hogwarts in a great train of carriages, giving Hermione no chance to spot their friends and family.

Mostly, her thoughts were on Ginny’s ride across the lake, and wondering how many nargles Luna would spot on her way to be sorted. 

 

* * *

 

Hermione was aghast over the buzz quickly spreading through the Great Hall.

She pushed to the front of the crowd of students gathered by the windows to see Harry and Ron crawling out of the Ford Anglia, the bonnet crumpled. It had crashed against the Whomping Willow, the only tree on the grounds that was sentient enough to attack a car.

Said car went racing into the Forbidden Forrest, sentient enough to flee danger, leaving Harry and Ron to stand up after being thrown and run across the lawn dragging their trunks and shouting amongst themselves. 

Next to her, Fred and George sighed in tandem. “We had…” Fred whispered to his twin, mournfully. 

“Such plans for that car.” George continued, in that same dejected tone. 

They sighed again in pathetic unison. 

Hermione arched an eyebrow.

They colored. 

Silly boys. 

Hermione shook her head and walked away, before she laughed outright at their lost expressions. Hermione wondered distantly what her mother would say if she said, “Hey, Mum, you don’t have to worry about the boys fantasizing about a threesome in the back of the Anglia. Ron and Harry crashed it.” 

Carefully, she headed out into the front hall, only to hear Professor Snape absolutely lambasting Harry and Ron. “—Seen by no less than seven muggles!” His pallid face was thunderous as he released their collars, causing both young men to stagger to a stop. 

Hermione quickly grabbed a copy of _The Evening Prophet_ and took a look at the story above the fold. Scanning it, she inadvertently laughed at one of the witnesses names. In doing so, she brought the Bat of the Dungeons down upon herself, for her turned from Harry and Ron with military precision and called out, “Miss Granger!”

“Yes, sir?” Hermione asked, walking purposefully towards him with the paper in hand. “May I help you?”

Snape was at his most silky, his most dangerous. “Do you suppose, Miss Granger, that the very secrecy of our society is a laughing matter?”

Harry went to bat again, “We’ve tried to tell you that no one—”

“Silence!” He roared. 

“They’re correct, Professor Snape.” Hermione wasn’t cowed, “There is no way they could have been seen.”

“You hold the very proof in your hands, and yet you persist in defending them. Is there no limit to your sentimental stupidity?” His smile was chilling, “Five points, Miss Granger.” 

“Of course, sir.” Hermione replied, “There is a complete and total cloaking device on that Anglia, and the witnesses names are borrowed, if you will, from literary figures.” Hermione offered an example, avoiding the shocked gazes of Harry and Ron, “Or did you suppose there was a real Mr. Rochester of Currer Bell and a Jane Thornfield?” 

When a vein jumped in his neck, she made her point explicitly, “This is Ministry propaganda.”

He went deathly pale.

Hermione finished quickly, “Were they seen? Yes, assuredly. But by wizards.” 

Hermione explained her theory, “These wizards, as good citizens, reported it to the Ministry. In turn, the Ministry, fearing as they do the sort of integration of magical and muggle technology as seen in this Ford, put out the story as something of a cautionary tale, using the Boy Who Lived once again as a poster boy to discredit him and maintain the status quo.”

“Detention!” He hissed, though Hermione knew he must see the truth, too. “And fifty points from you, Miss Granger for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong and posturing about with your so-called intellect! You will be scrubbing cauldrons from tomorrow until Friday.”

He rounded on Harry and Ron, who were standing there, staring at her in shock. They were each assigned detentions with Filch and docked of 20 points a piece. 

When he stalked away, the twins zoomed out of the shadows and surrounded them, “Hermione—”

George was literally bouncing up and down like a small boy, “That was totally and absolutely…”

“The most epic thing…” Fred was looking at her with big calf eyes, like she was a giant Mars Bar. 

“We’ve ever seen!” George continued to bounce, grabbing her in an enthusiastic hug that made her laugh. 

Meanwhile, Fred just stared. Hermione pulled him into the hug, too, because if he was going to be weird, well, at least he was hers. Fondness welled in her heart, which must have shown in her face. George let go, and Hermione let go of Fred. 

Ron looked disgusted. “First, you lot sneak out and don’t invite us. And then Hermione, of all people, uses information that got you all cutting grass and wrangling doxies for weeks to outwit Snape.” He looked up to the heavens, “What is the world?”

“Ron.” Harry wrinkled his nose, “You wouldn’t wanted to have been there. Just thank her and don’t ask questions.”

Ron persisted, “But why was Hermione—”

Harry rolled his eyes, clapped Ron on the shoulder, and led him into dinner as he blathered on about Hermione getting to do everything fun. 

* * *

Hermione thought about her schoolwork during detention.

There was something not quite right about Professor Lockheart. His books, of which Hermione was speedily reading, contradicted each other in terms of continuity and they contained factual errors. Hermione herself, even within the scope of her limited magical education, had listed at least five pages of inconsistencies and incorrect assertions in her notebooks. 

She wasn’t too sure that what she was reading was true. The author didn’t seem at all credible. If there was one thing being the child of two academics had taught her, it was how to evaluate sources critically and weigh evidence empirically. Professor Lockhart did not seem credible. She resolved to make researching his research practices and his background into a full project. 

There was just something about his lessons that absolutely stank worse than the dung bombs her admittedly clever but slightly immature boys set off when they were bored. 

Hermione resented having to pay a lot of money full of books that didn’t seem to be worth the paper they were printed upon, and she resented that each and every lesson was a rehash of the readings. There was nothing new added to the lectures, or recitations as they were more accurately becoming, and Lockhart either directed them to their texts with questions, or searched it out himself.

While she appreciated being taught to learn in the classroom, and self-direction, there was something to be said for a professor actually enriching the lessons and making something of himself as a teacher. Lockhart didn't even allow for demonstrations, just dramatic reenactments involving Harry and a teddy bear.

Hermione’s detentions were bearable until the middle of the week, when Snape smirked and admitted Malfoy into the room. He excused himself with a cold directive for Hermione to continue with her work while Draco made use of one of the lab benches. She had never been given lab space, and the disparity was made glaringly clear when Draco smirked that his father had refurbished the lab for his dear friend, Severus. 

 Hermione entirely ignored Draco each day that followed. He seemed oddly intent on staring at her, and Hermione felt shivers down her spine nightly until she escaped to the hall, gripping her wand in a defensive position, pretending as though she was hurrying along to meet someone, sticking to lit and heavily populated corridors as a matter of instinct. 

Hermione really and truly felt like Malfoy was doing this on purpose, and she knew he was getting bolder. He seemed to grow angrier and angrier as each night passed, when he couldn’t get a rise out of her, when she wouldn’t reply to his thinly veiled insults as conversation starters. She did her assigned work, and got the hell out of the room. 

* * *

 

When someone stepped out of one of the alcoves that dotted the halls, right as she was passing it, Hermione jumped a foot and nearly fired off a stunning spell, before a gentle hand on her arm clued her in to who it was. George was looking into her face with genuine concern, “Hermione.”

Hermione sheathed her wand up her sleeve and released a ragged breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “Hey, George.” 

George took her satchel, despite her protests that it wasn’t at all heavy, and steered them both into the alcove. The space was dark save for the light that spilled into it from the lit corridor. “Are you going to tell me, Kitten, what’s been so terrifying about your detentions?”

“You’re taking the softer approach, huh?” Hermione deflected the question. They’d been pestering about the emotions they were picking up all week. Yesterday, Fred had tried to accompany her, which of course led to a telling off. Molly did not need another letter that Weasley, Weasley, and Granger had gotten yet more detentions concurrently. Ron and Harry had already gotten one Howler. 

Remus and Sirius had sent a thinly veiled letter of congratulations. He was expected, however, to do chores to compensate the Weasley’s for his portion of the damage. 

“Please.” George asked, “Please, Hermione. Maybe there’s nothing we can do like you’ve said, but at the very least, let us be there to listen.” 

“I…” Hermione realized that whatever she felt wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t the one being a total creep. She wasn’t at fault. Anything inside of her telling her that she simply had to suck it up and let this go was rape culture, a pervasive force in wizarding society. “It’s really—”

Just as she was about to take the advice she had given them last year at Christmas, Hermione noticed a shadow falling over the floor and spilling under the curtain. Malfoy was standing out there, listening. She wanted to tell George, but she couldn’t, not now, and if she said she would tell him later, there was every chance Malfoy would follow her more. 

For some reason, he was after her. Keeping that thought in mind, Hermione shook her head. She couldn’t alert George to their company. George finding out like this would be nothing short of terrible. “It’s nothing.” 

“You’re sure?” George asked, “You promise? They way you’ve been feeling…” 

Hermione cut him off. Malfoy of all people finding out a nascent, and thus vulnerable, bond at this stage would surely mean complications for them. “George, please.”

Hermione lived with herself in the aftermath of seeing the expression on his face when she told herself that she had not lied to him. Just after George gently touched her face and whispered her name, the shadow moved. Hermione sighed deeply, both from the peace of George’s soft touch, and the fact that Malfoy was gone, blending into the foot traffic passing along the corridor. 

A scant moment later, the curtain parted, and Fred poked his head into the alcove, having just come around the corner. “For the keeper of the plan, George, you’re abysmal at actually sticking to it.” 

“Were you out there a minute ago?” Hermione asked, playing it off when Fred shook his head and shot a look at his twin as if to ask what was wrong with her. 

George shrugged. “She said she’s fine. What do you want me to do about it?”

“I still say we should have gotten ourselves a bit of detention.” Fred asserting, cluing Hermione into yet another conversation they’d had about her. She did sometimes what they said about her behind closed doors, if anything. 

“Yeah, because subterfuge is so much easier than talking to me.” Hermione rolled her eyes, stepping out of the alcove, “And what’s this plan you’re on about?”

“Sorry, Granger.” George replied, falling into step beside her, “Need to know only. You’ll have your chance to revise it.”

“Which we are sure you will do extensively.” Fred let go of her, as did George, so that she might proceed them up the stairs. “Please Merlin.”

“If it’s about your business plan, I do mean to read it as soon as I can.” Hermione replied, “I’ve been researching Lockheart.”

Fred began, “Don’t tell us—”

“You’ve fallen in lust with him—” George asserted. 

It was all Hermione could do not to laugh. 

“He’s beautiful.” Fred twittered like some of her classmates, “And you’ve decided want to bask in the glory of his ego?”

George finished, “Haven’t you?”

“Actually…” Hermione waited at the top of the staircase to let them fall into step with her, “He’s a fraud and a charlatan, and I can prove it.”

They spoke in unison, “How?”

“Research.” She grinned, “How else?”

Their impressed expressions emboldened her. After a second, she asked, “Want to be my study buddies?”

George began, brushing his hand along hers as they walked. “Do you mean the off-label drug…”

“Or the clandestine canoodling?” Fred leaned closer as they moved. 

Hermione burst out laughing, startling several people in the corridor. “That is the last time I give you two a slang dictionary.” 

They turned the corner, and George used the moment to whisper in her ear, “Because personally, we’d much rather the latter definition.”

Fred agreed with his twin, allowing. “Especially if I find that chair again.”

Hermione smirked. She might have already moved said studying chair to their corner workspace.

The back of the stacks had a table that was quite suited to studying, especially since she practically lived in the library. Why shouldn’t she have creature comforts? If arranged properly, three people could comfortably sit and read there.

It was a bit of a squeeze for the person in the middle, but that was rather the point. 

* * *

Saturday morning was chilly, even by the time that she wandered down to the pitch to do some reading and watch the practice with Ron. She was in the middle of telling Colin to stop taking photographs when she noticed something of a commotion going on on the pitch. 

Upon closer inspection, Hermione saw green robes fluttering in the breeze. She and Ron hurried across the pitch to get closer. It certainly seemed clear that something was happening, and Hermione wasn’t about to be left out, or to be unable to provide eyewitness account. 

Hermione followed the conversation, and watched as a smug looking Malfoy was introduced as the new Slytherin seeker. She held her tongue until Malfoy insulted the very serviceable, if not brand new, Cleensweeps. 

Hermione took one look at Malfoy, sizing him up, though she didn’t truly find much to measure.

“Well…” She flicked a cutting glance at the Slytherin team, “At least this way, Malfoy, you can be sure that whoever’s on our team got in through pure talent.” She looked directly at him, “And not because of the renovated labs and brooms Daddy bought.” 

“Shut your mouth, you filthy mudblood whore.” Draco spat. 

Instantly, all hell broke loose. 

Hermione grabbed Ron by the track jacket, but lost him when he twisted away with a yell.

She and Harry might not know what a mudblood was, but they both knew the meaning of the second word he’d used. The entirety of the the Gryffindor team was screaming and yelling.

Several people were holding Fred and George back. The whole thing was a riot. Marcus Flint was hauling Malfoy back by the scruff of his uniform. 

There was movement everywhere, as the twins made progress toward Malfoy even with people doing their level best to prevent it. Hermione thought that Mr. Malfoy ought to send Wood and his team a fruit basket for saving his heir from certain death. Hermione saw Ron pulling his wand as Katie Bell shoved George forward.

She wanted the twins to make good on their threats. 

Ron’s wand had been snapped in the struggle. 

Hermione made a choice. She did not want Malfoy’s position to be dignified by reaction. She would ignore him like the ant he was. 

He was calling out, even as his team was doing their best to quiet him, which wasn’t admittedly much. Most had gotten out of the way. “The only place for mudbloods is on their knees before their betters. But you’ve figured that out, haven’t you, Weasel twins?” Malfoy smirked at the twins, “Quite the economical thing, isn’t she?”

Hermione was jostled by the surge of the crowd and the fracas that erupted anew when people heard Malfoy. She felt George and Fred pulling at their shared magical cores, and knew unless she acted, that Malfoy would be a crater in the next ten seconds. 

“Malfoy!” Hermione called out, taking a single step forward. He got one pot shot. Anything else, Hermione decided, was fair game for his just desserts. One comment she would forget, but she would not allow his behavior to be seen as acceptable.

She had the power to fight, not only for herself, but for every other muggleborn, every other woman, standing on this pitch. 

 Hermione knew the air was pulsing with her power, raw magic floating along on the breeze. Hermione didn’t pull her wand. She knew she didn’t need it. She didn’t even need a spell. All she needed to make her point was her will, and to keep her feet on the ground. “Do you remember what I told you the last time you bothered me?”

Malfoy spat, his salvia landing near her feet, totally stopped in its tracks by a barrier, unseen but impenetrable. 

“No?” Hermione smiled, “How about a reminder? It’s certainly a better use for your mouth than the filthy mud you’re spewing.” 

The entirety of two quidditch teams were staring at her, when she let her smile fade, and said, very simply, “Eat slugs, Malfoy.” 

And thus, he began to prodigiously vomit the aforementioned creatures. 

The team went wild. 

Hermione hadn’t believed it would happen, but it did. 

Slytherin hauled Malfoy off, who couldn’t even scream, “Wait until my father hears about this!” Without pausing every other syllable to vomit more slugs. 

Hermione waved cheerfully, “I look forward to our meeting!” 

* * *

Fred and George were enraged, absolutely enraged. They paced in the changing rooms like two tigers caged. Magic was bouncing off the walls. Poor Ron had to duck to avoid something flying his way. 

Hermione crossed her arms, “Calm down, the both of you, now.”

“He called you—” Fred broke off, unwilling as he was to repeat anything that had been said. 

“Please, whore is a word a little boy uses when he wants to shame and put down a woman far more powerful than he’d ever dream of being.” It had stung a little, but really. “We’ve got to consider the source and move on. It doesn’t matter what he says.”

“Hermione.” Ron blurted, “You don’t understand.”

Hermione realized that, perhaps, Ron wasn’t looking at the bigger picture. “Look, a way to handle misogynistic prats like Malfoy—”

“What are you on about?” Ron blurted, “Why would you want to massage Malfoy?”

Harry tried, “Ron, she’s talking about—”

“He called you a mudblood.” George spoke, halting Ron and Harry’s sidebar. “It’s basically an ethnic slur, but not exactly.”

“Like—” Hermione thought of some of the more horrible words thrown about by racists and xenophobes. 

“Yeah.” Fred nodded. “Basically, he told you that your blood wasn’t blood. He said it was mud, because you’ve muggle parents. It’s…he…”

George looked brokenhearted as he told her this, as though he would rather have eaten his own heart out with a spoon. “He tried to devalue your humanity, Hermione.”

A lightbulb went off in Hermione’s mind. She didn’t know where it had come from, only that it was never going to go out, “It’s the very foundation of the violence from the First War, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Fred affirmed, his eyes sorrowful. 

“And it’s the reason why Voldemort is trying to get a foothold again, why he possessed Quirrell. He wants to kill me, and everyone like me.” Hermione summarized, “After all, if I’m not human, well, than my very life a mere triviality, isn’t it?”

Fred stared at her, “You are without question, far more human than that slug.” 

“Hermione!” Ron cried, “Don’t—-”

“You are smart, and kind, and remarkable—” George contradicted her. 

Harry’s voice was just as sure, “You can’t let—”

“This war that’s coming…” Hermione breathed, cutting into the myriad of voices around her, “I don’t think it’s solely Harry’s war. Maybe yeah, he’s got to end Voldemort.”

In Hermione’s mind, Harry clearly had been chosen for a solo mission. He was the one would end Voldemort, once and for all, as the prophecy had foretold. But she, she was the one who would bring down his reign of terror. Harry would be focused on one man, but her Triad was at the center of it all in a larger, broader way. 

“How do you know that?” Harry demanded this as though he had been careful with his secrets around her. He hadn’t. In fact, he and his parents had conversed right in front of her. Hermione had asked if they wanted her to leave, but Harry had shaken his head and asked her to stay. 

“I can add A and B and get C, Harry.” Hermione smiled, “People tend to forget I’m the room.”

Harry understood what she did not say. He had made a choice to let her in, not because she was invisible, but because he saw her, and he knew, even if it was only on an instinctual level that her triad was as important as the trio in ending Voldemort and the things he sought to encourage. “But?”

“I think, and this is only just a feeling, that this is our war…” Hermione found a soul level confidence in these words. If she had believed in divination even a little bit, she would have claimed them as prophecy, “This is the war we’re meant to fight, ending this systemic hatred and subjugation. I’m so sorry to pull you two into this. But I know.”

Fred gruffly cleared his throat, “Don’t you ever apologize, ever.”

George again contradicted her, “We would do anything to create lasting change. I think it’s a small part of why we’re…” He trailed off when he looked at Ron and Harry, who knew nothing of the facts of the nascent bond. 

Hermione thought of all the people who had lived their lives under the thumbs of other people because of their blood status or their species, and she knew that in this moment she had found her calling. 

Sharing a look with her boys, Hermione vowed then and there that while Harry would win the key battle, her triad would carry the war. It was a truth that, once it had risen in her mind like a sunrise on the Scottish moors, would never change. In light of this truth, Hermione’s life changed as profoundly as it had when a witch in a green hat came to the door and also when Hermione had bumped into two boys in King’s Cross. 

* * *

The meeting with Malfoy Sr. never materialized, but Hermione was distracted, in any case.

In doing copious amounts of research about Lockheart, whom she knew now to be a total and utter buffoon and liar, Hermione stumbled upon texts that spoke of various legends relating to creatures Lockhart claimed to have fought. Hermione knew that legends often had a basis in fact, and so she went off on that tangent, researching legends, fully anticipating what she found.

In addition to learning about creatures that expanded her understanding of the wizarding world, she learned that Lockhart had plagiarized several texts, stealing not only legends but documented accounts from other older, less widely known, explorers. It was amazingly arrogant. When she gave a whoop of delight, both Fred and George’s heads snapped up at the sound, even as she began to dance around, hugging the tome to her chest. 

A loud shushing rang out in the library, which sobered Hermione enough to present her findings to Fred and George. It was incredibly sloppy work on Lockhart’s part, but Hermione had come to expect little else after weeks of Lockhart’s classes and his boring books. His writing was sloppier, only made worse by his horrible explanations that frequently veered into ego-stroking and boasting. 

She was still floating on that cloud when she and the twins and Harry and Ron attended Sir Nick’s Deathday Party. When they were walking in, Hermione whispered to the men flanking her, “Will there be blood pudding?”

They smirked, but did not answer. That joke was the highlight of the party. Within a scant hour, which seemed like eternity, Harry pled a migraine and they made their excuses and left. When they were walking down a corridor on the first floor, Harry cried out. “It’s coming from this way.”

“What do you mean, your headache is coming from an external source?” Hermione asked, “I think you need to get to a neurologist, Harry. You could have…”

“This is magical. It’s my shields.” Harry muttered, gripping onto Ron, “I need to drop them.”

“Shields?” Hermione asked. 

George whispered in her ear, “Mental blocks to keep other people from reading your thoughts. Occulumency, Kitten.”

Hermione absorbed this information, having read something about it. She knew enough to issue an order. “Don’t drop them!”

Hermione did the only sensible thing, as Harry followed the pain to Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. The girl flew and swooped and cried as she dove back into her toilet bowl. Carefully, Hermione put up a very strong shield charm that Harry said helped, and Hermione knew it to be helping when he smiled weakly, “Hey, thanks, Hermione.” He shook himself, “Whatever is bugging me is really creepy.”

Hermione reached out to pat his arm, saying, “No worries.” 

The world tilted on its axis when her fingers fraternally brushed his sleeve. 

When she touched him, his pinched expression faded. Hermione’s whole body grew warm, and following her instinct, she pressed her hand down upon him, focusing entirely on that feeling of warmth. 

She shivered with the impact of her action. She wanted to find out the source of the thing knocking against his shields. He swore it was a being. Mum and Dad had often told her that patients would tell them exactly what was wrong, if only medical professionals stopped to listen, and listen with empathy and critical thinking. 

Hermione knew Harry was a fairly self-perceptive and truthful person, so she trusted his impressions. Having no idea what to do was jarring, but she figured if she could make her enemy eat slugs with a single glance, and fix Ron’s broken wand when he wasn’t looking, that perhaps this was possible, too. And even if nothing came of it, perhaps the placebo affect would kick in. 

Mentally, she demanded with every bit of her might and her will and her power that it reveal its location to her. She wanted a sign, not feelings. She wanted data. She wanted whatever it was to stop bothering Harry. Hermione focused as she shut her eyes, and pushed her intentions, screaming them in her mind. 

Something sharp and metallic bloomed underneath of the warmth, that brought tears to her eyes. She didn’t know how to block out the pain that came along with this current. The energy under her hand was distinctly metallic, flowing from her hand that was now on Harry’s head to the very soles of her feet. The blood in her arm rose to the surface, sickly and darkly red against her skin. 

 Dimly, Hermione realized that Fred’s arm was around her waist, and George was nestled behind her. They were holding her to them, and when she realized this and leaned into them, the very ground under her feet shook with supernatural force as pain surged. Fred and George were pulling back, but Hermione shook her head, totally beyond speech, and refused to give up her connection to Harry. 

From down the corridor, there came a great cracking sound, a deep reverberation. An agonizing light exploded behind her eyes as she slumped in their arms on the stone floor of the bathroom.

Her last awareness of the bathroom was staring at the ceiling and Myrtle leaning over her, “Granger’s done it now, hasn’t she?” 

* * *

Fred slumped back into the chair, and weakly addressed his brother. “What are we going to do?”

It had been three days, three days since’s Hermione had apparently brushed up the thing that was bothering Harry on a telepathic level. Her blood had been found on a wall. Her very blood had been used as ink for a chilling message. 

_The Chamber of Secrets has now been opened!_

_Enemies of the heir…beware!_

Hermione was unconscious, and the castle was a war zone. Rumors flew faster than curses. Students were being petrified, and as the bodies mounted in the infirmary, Fred grew more and more concerned. There seemed no end to the carnage that had begun with Hermione. Pomfrey swore she wasn’t petrified, but planted a mandrake for her anyway. 

Mum arrived at the school and cried by Hermione’s bedside. Days blurred. 

People began to sell talismans.

Ginny came by from time to time, telling them what people had been telling her.

Neville and Harry and Lee came when they were allowed to do so, but Ginny had more freedom to move around in the lockdown as she was their sister. Ron was emotionally distant, not that Fred blamed him. He’d come once, and read her a chapter of a muggle book Matt and Miranda had sent, and that had said more than any words of his own ever might. 

They said that Hermione was the Heir, which anyone who knew her defended against with everything they had in them. Fred and George didn’t have much left between them for anything other than sitting by her beside.  The only thing they could do was hold her hand, and think back over the moments that nearly cost them everything that mattered. 

George paused in his continual count of Hermione’s pulse, and the misery in his eyes matched Fred’s own emotion. Dumbledore had tried to force them to classes, but they wouldn’t budge, not even when Mum had demanded it of them. They hated to disappoint her, but when Hermione needed them, they would be there. They didn’t care if Dumbledore did find out about the bond, even though they knew why it scared Mum so deeply. 

“I don’t know.” George replied. It killed Fred to hear his twin, his brother, who was so certain of their plans that he routinely wrote them down and checked them off, admit that he no longer had any direction in life. 

Fred didn’t blame him. Their heart, the light of their souls, was lying in a hospital bed. No wonder they were lost in the darkness. Why others couldn’t see it was beyond the both of them. 

Pomfrey came round the curtain, “Boys, there’s nothing that will cure her but time. She’s magically exhausted. She needs rest. You do, too.” 

George hadn’t even heard her. 

“We’re fine, here.” Fred asserted, picking up the book he’d set down moments ago. He’d picked up where Ron had left off, reading the page slowly, and reading everything but the last three pages. The reason he stopped was simple. Hermione Granger would never, never, leave the world with a book unfinished and the story untold. 

As Promfrey sighed and exited, Fred picked up the froggy bookmark, the one Matt had given Hermione over the summer of a magical frog who sang in swamp, and continued, “‘November is the most disagreeable month in the whole year,’ said Margaret, standing at the window one dull afternoon, looking out at the frostbitten garden.” 

Continuing on with his task, he read to George, and to Hermione, praying she would wake up so that he could finish the story.

He wanted to hear hear her scoff, and tell them both that Jo would only be happy with Laurie, because they were friends, and knew one another’s souls, and nothing could replace that, not even a bumbling professor with a cute accent.

And then, in her know-it-all Granger way, she’d smile, and squeeze their hands. They all knew what she meant. 

Fred read the passage from _Little Women_ , and privately agreed that this November was turning out to be the very worst of his life.

* * *

The silence echoed as Madam Promfrey left, satisfied that she was awake and not in mortal peril. In that moment, they looked to each other, and the brave faces her boys had presented to the Matron disappeared. In the space of a second, Hermione learned more about the last few weeks than she had over the ten minutes with the Matron. 

George sobbed brokenly. Fred let the tears trail down his face, the soft hyperventilations that came with those silent tears revealing so much. George buried his face in her neck, and Hermione lifted her hand to his hair, smoothing it back.

Fred shook with his pain, and Hermione lifted her other hand. It was all the permission he needed. Gently, as though he thought her to be made of glass and not flesh and blood and bone, he pressed his damp eyes against her chest, placing his ear just above where her heart beat in her chest. 

She felt George’s huffs of air against her carotid artery. Her other hand smoothed down Fred’s back. Once he grip on each of them was firm, Hermione let sleep overtake her. She didn’t want to leave them, so soon, but finally, finally, she was warm. The light was back in her soul. 

Molly came the next day. Hermione knew she looked like hell, because the twins kept smoothing back her awful hair and looking at her with their hearts in their eyes. Hermione had forced Ron to drag them to the Tower for some real sleep in a real bed. 

Consequently, she was alone when Molly came to see her. She, apparently, had steamrolled right past the lockdown. She had heard volunteer nurses from Mungo’s saying that Mrs. Weasley was not the sort to leave one of her children alone in hospital, and given the lockdown, Hermione could not be transferred. Therefore, the second nurse trainee had whispered as she had tended the petrified girl in the next ned, Molly Weasley would come to her child.

Hermione had not corrected their assumptions. 

When Molly did come, she brought her own food, declaring the food Hermione was given not restorative enough. She further asserted that there was every possibility of meat contamination. She had removed all manner of muggle foods from her bag. There was at least a week’s worth of food on the small bedside table Molly had enlarged. 

“Molly…” Hermione asked, “Did you go to Waitrose and Sainsbury’s?” 

“Miranda did, and I merely collected the order.” Molly replied, “I’m under strict orders to take a list of anything you want from home, and I’ll bring it.”

Hermione took what little alone time they had together to express her deep concern for George and Fred. Elaborating,  Hermione said, “I’d really rather you went and saw to them. I can’t…” Hermione’s eyes filled with tears, “And I just…” 

Molly patted her hand, “Everything will be just fine when you regain your magical stores. You pushed yourself, Hermione. You’re untrained.” Molly was clearly speaking of the bond, “And this won’t happen again. The best thing you can do for Fred and for George is to take the time you need to feel yourself again.” 

Hermione shook her head. Who could take time to rest when there was a being creeping around the castle petrifying innocent people? Who could rest when she had over a month of schoolwork to do? Who could rest when it was almost Christmas and she barely remembered Halloween? 

“You must.” Molly insisted. “I’ll do all I can to help you.”

Hermione was so tired. She had to do something. She had to get out of this bed. Pomfrey wouldn’t even let her use magic to get to the loo, and her legs would not support her for much farther than those two or three feet. “How long will I be here, really and truly?”

“Minerva’s arranged…” Molly gently replied, “For you to return to classes after Christmas. It’s only a few weeks, and you will need every bit of it.”

“Have…have the twins been going to classes?” Hermione asked, almost afraid she knew the answer. She was terrified that their absences would have to be explained to Dumbledore. He was a good Headmaster, but she did not want him involved in her bond. 

Molly grinned. “You’d be so proud, dear.” There were tears in her eyes, “They’ve been going on rotation. Act surprised when they tell you.”

Hermione blinked and nodded quickly. “Molly, when you go and check on them, would you grab me a few things?”

“Anything you like.” Molly promised, “But first, let’s see about some soup. Now, I brought along five different kinds. I’ve two more on the cooker at home, but the potato soup is really better with some time to simmer.”

Hermione groaned when Molly levitated a steaming bowl onto the tray table. Her hands shook when she reached for the spoon. She submitted to Molly’s carefully cheerful assistance with a bone tired resignation born of having no other alternatives. 

When she declared herself full after a mere five bites, Molly put the soup under stasis, and bustled off to see why a nurse was not present to attend to Hermione. As she left, Hermione heard her muttering about flat pillows and condensation on the ice jar. 

By the time she came back to tell Hermione that she was headed to the Tower, and that Prunella was going to help her, Hermione was again asleep. 

* * *

The hours passed slowly, but Hermione did get better.

Daily, she found that she needed to sleep less, and feel more like herself. Ginny came by with gossip, but none related to the potential closure of the school. Her roommates came by, escorted by the Head Girl, to express their well wishes on behalf the school. Harry and Ron were frequent visitors, and Ron was at least honest about her appearance, which gratified Hermione. 

Hermione spent 95% of her waking time researching the petrification. Ginny and Dobby, an elf that had bonded uniquely with Harry, brought her any number of books. Hermione had asked Neville to develop the film that had been in Collin’s camera. She couldn’t believe that not one of the officials had thought of it. 

Hermione read the business plan, and decided upon her second read through to make a detailed set of notes. She was very proud of the twins, very proud of George’s business sense, and Fred’s willingness to take a risk. She wanted to anything she could to help them, even as she was stuck in the hospital wing. 

Fred and George were adamant, however, that she was not to lift a quill. Doing so would require her to use magic that she was supposed to be allowing to rest, and they could not find a muggle pen or non-magical pencil. Thereby, George agreed to play secretarial assistant, and grabbed the journal off of the bedside table. 

Hermione dictated, starting with the introduction, her points. As soon as George wrote the first word, he paused. 

Fred looked to him, “What’s wrong with the quill?”

It had been a bit dog-eared. Fred was something of a nibbler. George looked puzzled, so Hermione tried to lean forward to look at the book in his lap. She saw nothing. George jumped when the diary’s pages bloomed with spidery letters. 

_Hello._

“Cool!” George cried, “It’s a joke journal.” 

Hermione sat back with a sigh, letting her eyes float closed. It was always easier to sleep when her boys were there, and happy. 

“What do you mean, ‘cool?’” Fred replied, frowning, “We’ve already got a prototype! We’ve been supplanted.”

“Oh.” George replied. “Well, anyway, let’s try to find a flaw in the spell-work and exploit it by making ours better.”

“What’s the name of the company?” Fred pressed, “I bet it’s that knobhead Zonko.”

George flipped to the front, but the nameplate was totally blank. He shrugged, shooting a look to his brother. Dropping his voice, he asked, “Tired, Kitten?”

Hermione shook her head against the raised head of her bed, keeping her eyes closed. “Ask the book stuff and tell me what it says.” Hermione lifted a hand, “Go wild.”

“Bold words from the lady, Georgie.” Fred retorted gently. 

“I do believe, brother mine, that the gauntlet has been thrown.” George agreed. 

Hermione made an inarticulate sound of agreement, happy to float on the sound of their voices and the feeling of warmth in her soul. 

* * *

They put their heads together in order to ask some of their best jokes, not the secretly best ones, because Knobhead Zonko might have a spying spell on the books he sold. He was a git like that, so they trotted out their somewhat dusty second best jokes. 

The book, instead of engaging in witty repartee, or what passed for wit in Zonko’s mind, grew angry. It spat out indignant replies, and insulted them roundly. They ended up getting into a written argument with the damn thing, poking fun at it at every turn. Finally, they turned to tell Hermione of the book’s latest response to their assertion that it was cheaply made and would be better off as muggle toilet roll. 

Hermione was staring at them with wide eyes. “That book.” She panted, “What is it?”

“It’s just a…” George thrust the quill at Fred, and reached out to touch Hermione gently. Her skin was growing paler by the second, “Do you need Promfrey?” 

Fred accidentally brushed the quill’s tip against the paper as he stood. Hermione gasped anew, “It’s pulling at our magical core, when you write.” She gasped, “Oh, it hurts…” There were tears in her eyes, “I don’t want to leave you both.”

And then, her eyes rolled back into her head, and she started to convulse. George yanked the pillows out from under her head using his hand to lay her flat, and Fred screamed for Pomfrey as they turned her onto her side, gently, and shoved the blankets down. Thank Merlin Lee’s sister had these things, and so they all knew what to do. 

The Matron bustled over, and waved her wand, colors and auras and movement exploding around her. The brilliance of the reds and oranges and greens made them dizzy. “Her magical core is so low, so there’s little to expend, so whatever’s pulling on her energy is reaching for external sources. Her own core is trying to protect them. ” She extrapolated data from the magical readouts around her, “Very strange.”

“For fuck’s sake, Poppy, heal her!” George insisted, as Poppy waved her wand. 

She worked quickly, and Hermione stopped shaking with rigid force. 

Fred and George shared a look. That journal had been pulling on their souls, and it was only the bond that had made them see it. Without Hermione’s core being so delicate, they never would have known what was happening until it had been far too late.

But why would a journal want to pull at their magic, their souls? 

* * *

The next day, Hermione held the journal that had, according to the twins, caused her seizure. Hermione blinked at them, “You think the journal tried to suck out your souls?” She tilted her head, “But why would I feel it and neither of you did?”

“Hermione.” Fred replied, “Our magical cores are fusing.”

Hermione swallowed. 

George continued, “And clearly, you felt it only because you’re healing a very large magical drain.” 

“And so, if whatever magic this is went for your soul, it would start with the easiest portion of a magical core to get a foothold on, which at present would be the magical core that resides within me.”

After all, all people put out some level of ambient magic that was easily susceptible to attack unless they were being careful. It was why they naturally fried modern electronics, for example. That wasn’t the point, though. Hermione shook her head, “So, the language about being one soul wasn’t figurative?”

They shook their heads in unison. 

“Well.” Hermione replied, “That makes me rethink some of the books I’d categorized as allegorical.” 

“I think…” Hermione ventured, “That a trip to the restricted section is in order.”

“We’ll go and get it.” Fred hastened, as George asked for the title. 

Hermione was afraid it wasn’t going to be that easy. “It’s at Grimmauld Place. Sirius’s family had a ton of books on soul magics, and I can only think to start there.” 

* * *

Within 12 hours, she had the required book in hand, delivered by one Sirius O. Black himself. He grimaced gently at Hermione, “Try not to read the racy bits, okay?”

Hermione tilted her mouth downward, and asked, “You mean like all those books behind the dictionaries on the fifth shelf to the left by the window?” Hermione lifted the top cover of the leather bound book, “This has nothing on them, and those have nothing on my mother’s romance novel collection.” 

“Are you finished shocking an old man?”

“I’ve got to do something, stuck here as I am.” Hermione allowed, “And I get so few victims to shock.” 

“I am happy to be of service to you, in that case.” Sirius grinned, “Now, suppose you tell good old Pads what you’re looking for?”

Hermione evaded the question with the truth, “I haven’t any theories, as yet.” 

“Well, try me.” Sirius pressed, “In addition to being a lending library for incapacitated teenage witches, I am also the scion of a house that was rather possessed by  soul magic.” 

“Funny.” Hermione smiled, “Put up your finest security charms, and we’ll wait for Fred and George, if you’ve the time.”

“It’s 11:57.” Sirius deadpanned, looking at his wristwatch. 

Hermione rolled her eyes. Dad jokes were Dad jokes the whole world round. “Can you wait? Seriously, you’re very kind, and I don’t want to keep you.”

“Yes, I am quite the definition of Sirius.” He continued, “And I’m at your command, maiden fair.” 

Hermione laughed. “Why won’t anyone tell me I look like warmed up oatmeal left in the pot for six weeks?”

“It’s not that bad, surely.” Sirius assured her, “You’re far less vile and moldy looking, though slightly more wan. You are not a totally unbecoming wannabe squib.”

Hermione laughed with some vigor. “I could have been a glorious villain.” 

“You even come with devoted henchmen.” Fred spoke as the curtain moved. 

George popped up his side and agreed, smiling, “But you’d have to promise us you wouldn’t kill us in a fit of villainous ire.”

Hermione smiled as Sirius sighed, “How do you two do that to me?”

Fred offered his customary non-response, “The students have surpassed the master.”

“You brought the books?” George noticed the book on Hermione’s lap. She was already leafing through the index. 

“Indeed.” He grinned, “But legally, before I turn over restricted documents over to a minor, I’ve got to have details.”

“Then take your book.” Hermione extended it, lifting it heavily from her lap. “I’m not turning my bond over to the Ministry.”

“Such distrust of authority, Miss Granger.” Sirius remarked, “As it happens, I won’t be filing paperwork. This book is privately owned, and technically doesn’t exist. So…” He sat down in a rather campy fashion, on the edge of the bed, “Tell Sirius everything.” 

They recounted the events of the previous evening. Sirius grew more and more washed out as they explained, a rather large feat for a man who took rather good care of his pale skin. At the end, when the twins finished explaining what Pomfrey had told them, and Hermione explored what they’d discussed, Sirius’s eyes were saucers. 

He asked, “Do you have any conceptualization of what you’re discussing?”

“If we did…” Hermione gently assured him, “We would not have troubled you. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Hermione, he’s one of the the best aurors. He doesn’t—” George began. 

Hermione arched an eyebrow. 

George poured the man a cup of tea. 

It came from the tea pot Molly insisted live on one of the shelves, in case Hermione got peckish. Hermione hadn’t gotten peckish as yet, but the appliance was handy. 

Sirius sipped it gratefully. “I don’t suppose you have any biscuits?”

“My mum’s a stress baker.” Hermione informed him, “In the drawer there.”

Sirius took his cuppa and his biscuits, and explained. “I would need to this journal to confirm it, but I think you may have been given a…” He paused, “You say you got it from Malfoy?” 

Hermione quickly went over the day in the bookstore. She had long ago realized that it had to have been put in the cauldron by Malfoy or Lockhart, and Lockhart was too stupid by half. “And I forgot about it, until we were…” Hermione searched for a word, “Doing some post-illness life planning.” 

Sirius took the nearly dried quill that was still inside the book, and began to write. Fred mouthed the words. _I’ve been waiting for you._

_Ah. Who is this?_

_It’s Padfoot, Tom._

_Have we met?_

_You killed Lily and James. You murdered my child’s parents. You killed my baby brother. Your follower was my brother, and you turned him against his family, those who loved him, and he framed me for murder. And now, now I’m coming for you. Watch your back._

_Ah, I’m too powerful for you, Black. I’ve discovered a triad. They will enable my rise to power. I only tell you this because you’re dead, Black, a dead dog walking._

Sirius slammed the book shut, sweating. “It’s him. It’s a horcrux.”

* * *

Hermione dressed carefully in muggle clothes. Madam Promfrey helped her dress in thick  jeans, a bulky Weasley jumper and a thermal top, and her coat. Hermione added her hat, and her gloves. Thus, she emerged from the space around her bed and loo for the first time since Halloween night. 

“So…” George asked, when they were permitted to join her, peeking at the hem of the jumper that was visible below the hem of her peacoat. They were leaving for the station via floo, along with Harry, Ron, and Ginny. Madam Pomfrey would not put her in a carriage. 

Fred continued, “We want to know…”

“Is there a ‘G’ or an ‘F’ on your jumper?” George rounded the question off, as though the jumper she had selected would tell them something deeply secret. 

Hermione smirked. “Neither.” 

They goggled, and George spoke for them both as Fred ran through the list of Weasleys who would have loaned their Hermione a jumper. “Well, it can’t be mine or yours, or Gin’s, then. Whose jumper have you got?”

“I am in possession of an ‘H’ Weasley family jumper.” Hermione informed them, “It’s grey.”

“But Harry’s are green.” Fred blurted. 

Hermione revealed this surprise carefully, just because she wanted to see a look on their faces. “I have my own jumper, you dolts.”

They looked flummoxed. It was, by far, the most adorable thing Hermione had seen in some time. 

“But it’s not Christmas yet.” George reminded her. 

Molly only gave new jumpers as Christmas presents. “Apparently nearly dying earns you brownie points with Molly.” Hermione allowed, looking at her boys with a stern order. “Don’t ever try it.” 

* * *

She was stronger and brighter in complexion when she returned to school. Christmas had passed too quickly, her days full of reading and too much food. She had finally discovered the meaning of a hoocrux, and it was far worse than she had ever imagined. The ancestral Black library was now her center of command, where she had her own desk and her own work tables. 

Sirius was certain that Voldemort had made several, but the destruction of the diary was another matter. Not one of the books, the dirty, awful, soul crushing, books she’d read had discussed its destruction, only the creation. Those images were something Hermione would never get out of her head, or remove from her soul. 

Sirius and Remus hovered, anxious to protect them all. 

The twins did their share of the research, likely because she wouldn’t leave Grimmauld Place, and they clearly wanted to be near her. They, with their expertise in Care of Magical Creatures, took over looking for the agent of petrification. Using the map that they'd filched from their beloved quasi-uncles, they made a possible list of entrances and locations to the chamber. The list was extensive. 

But at least they had made some progress.

* * *

 

She could not say the same for Lockhart’s demonstrable skills. The day after they returned from term break, he hosted another one of his dueling clubs. Harry and Ron had told her that she needed to see this mess for herself, and so she went, not expecting much.  She knew better than to participate, but she did want to see dueling, or what might pass for it. Fred and George came, too, because they didn’t even so much as let her out of their sight or their protective personal space. 

The dueling club was nothing short of a disaster run by the Emperor of Disaster himself. Lockhart was assisted by Snape, which meant that the whole thing was a mess from the word go. When Harry took the platform against Malfoy, said Slytherin glanced over at a pale and wan Hermione, and hollered, “Serpensortia!” 

The detentions made sense. Malfoy knew from dear old Dad that she had the journal, and he'd been told to do something to hasten his father's rise to prominence. She knew enough about Death Eaters to write a book, given the piles of journals at Grimmauld Place.

Hermione saw the scuffle on the dueling platform, but what they were ignoring was the snake’s journey towards Justin. Hermione didn’t know what else to do, desperately, she screamed, “Stop!” 

The whole room paused as her words reverberated in the wide room. The snake that had been heading towards Justin exploded, its guts splattering everywhere. People screamed and ran. Snape was desperately calling for order. 

Hermione looked at the very real blood spattered on the floor, and sank in a heap, sobbing. She had killed the snake. 

* * *

Hermione buttoned her lips.

“Come now, Miss Granger."

The Headmaster was now irritated. "You are a prodigiously gifted witch. Surely you can explain the connection between your recent incapacitation, the erroneous message on the wall, and the unfortunate accident this afternoon?” 

“I have only begun to research connections, Headmaster. I’ve been trying to find the source of the petrifications.” Hermione replied, telling the truth but revealing nothing. Sirius and Remus had sworn them to secrecy, and even if they hadn’t Hermione would never run her mouth. “I have been remarkably tired as of late.” 

“Miss Granger.” Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled, “In this school year alone, you have enacted revenge on young Mr. Malfoy for an impetuous remark, enabled your blood to be spread on the walls in a very chilling way, terrorizing the school, and now you have destroyed a very complex conjuring spell with a single spoken word.” 

“None of this is my fault!” Hermione cried, “You can’t blame me for any of the school’s assumptions.” 

“And I do not.” Dumbledore agreed, “However, I feel certain that you must be aware of some connection that links these events into something that renders the inexplicable most sensible?”

“I am not the Heir!” Hermione insisted, full of conviction, because she knew who the heir was, and that she had brushed up against his minion in Harry’s mind. Yes, she had forced the chamber open, and yes, she was sorry, but it was not as if she had known what she was doing when she had made those mental demands. “And I—”

“Of course you are not.” Dumbledore smiled, “You are not a descendant of Salazar Slytherin.” 

Then he patted her hand, offered her a sherbet lemon, and admonished her with twinkling eyes to come to him directly if she thought of anything. 

* * *

His casual dismissal of her, when he should be doing something more, rankled Hermione.  If he had information, he should get off his duff and do something, not leave her to fumble along with breadcrumbs.

She threw herself into research. One night, candles burning bright around them as February became March, Hermione murmured “If only there was someone to…” 

An idea went off in her head. She reached into her bag, and pulled out the diary. Her revision companions noticed, because they jumped up, knocking their chairs backwards in their haste. “Hermione, no.”

“It seems like a good idea.” Hermione asserted, knowing her mind was eminently logical. 

“We know you’re brilliant at studying dark magic, Kitten…” George said this, by way of apology. 

Fred continued, “But there is a line between learning of it, and using it.”

“We won’t let you cross that.” George ventured, knowing full well that no one 'let' her do anything. 

Hermione, thinking over their words and their desperate expressions, put away the diary. 

That night, they turned their attention away from Tom and back onto the petrification. They had to be related somehow.  As the twins went over the list of possible locations, they suggested that it would have to be a place that was suited to the various creatures on the list. Hermione suggested, “Well, can you match any possible locations to the creatures listed?”

“Well…” George replied, “Our research says that it has to have a way to get around the castle without being seen, and since magical signatures are monitored, it has to be a physical movement, rather than apparition.” 

“Okay, so what connects the castle?” Hermione asked, “In a muggle home, I would say they were going about in the walls, like a brownie, or something.” 

“Walls…” Fred suggested. “Walls!” 

“Passages!” George blurted. 

“Passages?” Hermione asked, as they vanished their research and George took her hand. They raced out of the library, Fred padding along ahead of them, saying nothing. 

Finally, they came to a statue, and Fred whispered “Dissendium!” 

As he did so, the hump on the back of the one-eyed witch disappeared. Hermione’s jaw dropped. Mindful of the people who could be coming along down the deserted corridor, they entered the tunnel quickly. When they were all squeezed together in the dark tunnel, Hermione’s breath hitched.

“Not that we haven’t had the same thoughts, Kitten…” Fred spoke, finally letting go, and lighting his wand. 

George acted as though he were telling her something they didn't all know. “But really, now is not the time.”

Fred murmured. “Good addition to the list, though.”

“What list?” Hermione turned gently to look down the passage, “Where are we?”

They quickly explained in alternating sentences. They were in a passage that connected the school to Honeyduke’s in Hogsmeade. They further told her, walking along, that the passage branched off, if one knew where the other doors were. With impish grins visible even in the little light they used to illuminate their footsteps, she was assured that they knew each passage that branched off and where it led. 

“That must have taken you years!” Hermione exclaimed, impressed with their systematic research, even if the application was only now useful.

“We were bored first and second year.” Fred informed her, matter of factly. 

“Things changed third year.” George elaborated. 

Hermione lectured, “Don’t flirt with me when we’re trying to do this.”

“Kitten, you started it.” George teased. 

Hermione heard the smile in Fred's voice, “It’s only fair.” 

Hermione sighed, and they fell silent as George pushed open a wooden door that creaked, and led to a far smaller and musty passage. They sniffed the air, and threw up bubble head charms quickly as the stench began to overwhelm their senses. It smelled like rotting fish, death, and a gag-worthy bologna. 

Hermione felt her feet squelching in the formerly dry stones. “Where does this passage go?” She stopped, and spoke, “Lumos!”

The light increased when she lit her own wand, and Hermione saw that her sensible mary janes were coated in a milky looking gunk. She reached down and touched it as Fred spoke, “It goes past a lot of the classrooms and lets out…” He broke off, “That’s…that’s…”

Hermione agreed, “Musk.”

Fred began, “So, a snake of a some sort.”

“A snake that petrifies.” George continued, his face paling in the wand light. 

“A basilisk.” Hermione summarized, thinking back to Lockhart's plagiarized texts, and the research that had informed her conclusions. 

With dawning horror, they ran as far and as fast as they could back into the corridor. 

* * *

The next day, they came back, armed with research. They put a recording of a rooster’s crow in each of their pockets, and carried mirrors to deflect light back on any creature they saw. They entered the passage, and followed it along, moving past the musk. Fred bent down, when they saw the glint of snakeskin, in a narrow, narrow, passage that wove though the first floor. “We’re getting closer.”

“We need to get out of here.” Hermione insisted, pushing on the wall to find any door she could. Panic was building in her soul. She pushed until she found a door, and peered through a crack in the wall that, from the other side, looked like a joint holding stones together. 

It was Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. When they exited the passage, Myrtle swooped down. “Harry hasn’t been to visit me in days, just days!” She wailed, “Whatever shall I do?”

Hermione resolved that if it was the last thing she did, she would bring Harry to Myrtle. That afternoon, she did just that, accompanied by Ron and Harry, along with Fred and George. Harry began trying to make polite conversation as Hermione poked around the loo. “So, uhm, Myrtle…” Harry began, “How did you die?”

George facepalmed. Hermione ignored Harry’s insensitive question, knowing it was likely to dissolve Myrtle into tears, and went back to jimmying the toilets. You got into the Ministry via toilets, so Hermione wasn’t too comfortable dismissing them as a portal into the Chamber. She wasn’t about to force her way in, as she had no desire to spend the rest of the term in hospital. 

Myrtle did not cry. Rather she coo’d, and began to tell her story. As she spoke, Hermione tripped out of the stall, and nearly landed in a heap at Fred’s feet. He reached out to steady her. Hermione smiled at him in thanks as Myrtle glared at her, “I suppose you know more about my death than I do, Granger!” Myrtle cried, “You think you know everything! Olive was just the same way! Always—”

“I know how you died.” Hermione cut her rant off, “Where did you say you saw it?”

“I was coming out of that stall, and right there, by the sinks, I saw something.” Myrtle, “I died, and it was all Olive’s fault. She—-”

“The Chamber isn’t behind the toilets.” Hermione raced to the sinks, and began fiddling with the taps, letting water gush into the basin. “There has to be some pattern to open it. Some pattern of the taps must pull lever locks, and must let a passage open, rather like—-”

Myrtle sobbed that everyone was paying attention to Granger, and swooped into her toilet. Hermione waved her hand, and the taps shut off. She looked to her friends, “The simplest would be an alternating off on or on off pattern, but…” 

“Why can’t you just ask it to open?” Ron ventured. 

Instead of explaining what it would do to her, without a fully formed connection with Fred and George to keep her grounded, she snapped, “Because I don’t speak snake, Ronald!” 

In the silence that followed, Hermione glanced at Ron and at the twins, who were looking at her as though she was a genius. “What?”

“You might not speak to snakes, ‘Mione, but I do.” 

Harry approached the sinks, and hissed something. Hermione was flabbergasted that snakes had a language that people could learn. Before she could demand information, Harry hissed anew. 

Nothing happened. Perhaps this was not the way...

Harry hissed something more, and finally, finally, the sinks parted, revealing a passage that looked like a stone slide. 

They had found the Chamber of Secrets. 

* * *

There was rooster and basilisk blood everywhere by the time they emerged. The word bloody did not begin to cover how bad their battle had been. Hermione was burned, battered, and had at the very least, a concussion. There were countless broken bones amongst them, and cuts were plentiful, though no one had been bitten, thankfully.  

But, and this was the important but, Harry had done it. He killed the basilisk.

Then and only then did Hermione truly begin to understand her purpose in this mission. She, acting out of instinct, took the fang that nearly bitten Harry, and slammed it into the diary that she had brought along, Fred and George flanking her, holding her tight against them as the magic she’d forced to build up in her body zinged towards Fred and George and into the book.

When the spark of magic jumped from her bodies to theirs through their tight clasps, the resulting blowback shook the Chamber. 

Hermione watched the tunnel explode as her body felt lighter. Shrapnel flew everywhere as the sparks of the unformed bond grew brighter in her soul, consuming her for a barest second, until, for some reason, the brighter, illuminated feeling settled down.

It all happened in the span of a moment, but Hermione knew she would never forget that feeling, or stop wanting to chase it. 

Around her, there was a dark specter zooming amid the rubble, reaching out for anyone it might adhere to, in order to save itself from its fate. Hermione pulled every bit of that flickering and awe inducing magic together, and unable to do anything else, imagined herself obliterating the darkness that was swelling around them, screaming and fighting to stay on this plane. 

Harry and Ron dove for cover in the rubble of the collapsed tunnel as the diary exploded, rocking the room and the entire castle above it. Hermione heard something that almost existed outside of the range of human frequency, a loud keening that sounded like death and despair, rage and defeat. It would, she knew, haunt her until she died. 

Then, in the stillness that followed, George smoothed back her hair and smoothed his fingers over the blood that had pooled to the surface of her skin, leaving it mottled and bruised. 

Harry whispered, “What the hell did you three just do?”

“Holy fuck.” Ron blurted, “Mum is going to kill you all.” 

“Hey!” George wiped blood off of his forehead, standing still as Hermione healed it with the brush of her fingers against his skin.

Fred tore his gaze away from Hermione, who was tending to his broken arm in a similar manner, potent magic in the air. “We’re Mum’s favorites and you know it, Ronnikins.”

* * *

Hermione, a few hours later, settled her freshly washed mane of hair against her shoulder as she rested her head against the pillows in the hospital bed that she know thought of as hers. She was in for observation, but really, Hermione knew they were here so that the professors could corner them all in one spot and lecture. 

Hermione was tired of listening. “Professor…” Hermione interrupted McGonagall, “Can’t we just be glad it’s over?”

The Scottish woman paused. “The last of the mandrakes will be ready any day now.” She agreed, “However, what you five did, Hermione…”

“I’d really rather talk about some research I’ve been doing, Professor. It’s about Lockhart.” Hermione replied, “We could have found the basilisk within two weeks if he had done his job and assigned a real textbook. We should have learned about various creatures this year, and while basilisks are not covered, it would have been a short leap for me.” Hermione paused, “Then again, it was his plagiarism of a legends book that made me start thinking of mythical creatures, so…”

McGonagall’s interest was piqued, “Plagiarism?”

Hermione stifled a triumphant grin. Be a teacher magical or muggle, their innate hatred of academic dishonesty was universal. Hermione had her professor’s attention, clearly. Hermione pulled out a single notebook from under her pillow and waved her wand, watching as it expanded three times in size and tripled in weight upon her lap. 

McGonagall’s gaze grew shrewd. That spell that the twins had taught her on the train all those months and months ago was remarkably versatile. “Now, beginning of the introduction of _Magical Me!_ I found no less than seventeen…”


	4. Summer 1993

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why, again, did Ron almost get thrown over a pyramid by the twins? And why are there 'dentists' on the family clock?
> 
> Once you put on your OT3 glasses, there's references everywhere.

June passed in much the same way as the previous summer had, with lazy days wandering around the Burrow, and puttering about Crawley. They were, as they had been, in one another’s company for much of the summer. It was idyllic and slow, filled with books and wand fights in place of muggle water guns. Hermione enjoyed herself immensely. 

Then, in July, Mr. Weasley won the draw, and the Weasley family excitedly and happily planned a vacation to Egypt to see Bill. The twins were morose, because her parents would not let her go along, though she had been invited. Her parents insisted she come to France and spend at least a few weeks by the sea, and their request was reasonable, if painful.

She consoled herself that they would all be away, even if they weren’t in the same places, and that would be a distraction.  Hermione was not happy about this arrangement, but she had little recourse and needed all the rational justification she could muster up.

With some reluctance, she packed her bags and flew to France. 

Her mother was not exactly pleased with her, though her father seemed to be more understanding than she might otherwise have anticipated. Hermione wanted to be cheery, but her mother did not understand how challenging it was to be so far from the twins.

She wasn’t some pathetic romantic heroine, but there was a physical strain on their bond caused by distance. She grew nervous that their fledging bonds would falter or fail. To lose their connections would kill her, although not literally. Not yet, anyway. Triad Death was only a possible complication to a traumatic death of one of the partners after consummation. 

Hermione realized, as each day passed, that their magical cores were fusing, and that their partings would only get harder as the years passed, until they could dictate their futures, whatever they wanted them to be. She did not want to skip the years that would come, but getting letters from Alexandria to the cottage in France was not easy.

She had managed one to say she was there and safe, and another to say that the seaside was cold this year. She relished these feelings mostly because it meant her bonds were strong. 

Hermione beach combed and read, covering her skin a protectant spell to avoid burns.

Today, because they had gone to the museums, she was wearing a floppy hat and a loose floral sundress with flats she carried in her hand. The fashion was to wear them with platform sandals, but Hermione didn’t particularly like them. She looked really nice, she thought, and there was no one there to tease her about it.

Hermione looked out at the horizon, and breathed in the salty air. She was, as was her custom, magically skipping shells and rocks with the help of windless magic.

She couldn't carry her wand openly here, and she felt naked without it in her hand or against her wrist. Presently, it was stuck down her bodice. Having an ample chest from a very early age did have some benefit, Hermione rationalized.  

“I’ve seen you around here lately.” From about two feet away, a dark haired young man spoke. He wore jeans and a white shirt, untucked and rolled up to the elbows. “I’m Ashby.”

Hermione smiled, and returned to skipping rocks. She admitted that she used magic to make them skip, but she found the action meditative. “Hermione.”

“I’m from Birmingham.” Ashby continued, “We’ve a beach house.”

Was this supposed to impress her? It didn’t, in any case. 

“Us too.” Hermione replied, skipping another rock. With a gentle push of her magic, it skipped until she couldn’t see it very well amid the gentle roll of the waves.

Ashby commented upon her throw, “You’re amazingly good at that.” He seemed to blush in the fading sunlight, “I’ve been watching you, wondering how you do it.”

 “That’s easy.” Hermione replied from where she stood, “I cheat.” 

He laughed as though she wasn’t totally serious. Hermione just continued to skip rocks. 

At his most charming, which Hermione did not find charming at all, he asked,“Maybe we could get some ice cream and you could teach me to cheat half as well as you do?”

“I’m sorry.” Hermione replied, “I’m already in a relationship with two boys from school. I couldn’t possibly add another to my timetable.”

He grinned, as though she was talking about flirting and having it off on the side, rather than her life, rather than people she loved. “Well, does boy number one know about boy number two?” 

“Of course.” Hermione replied, wanting to hex him for being such a churl. Instead, she decided to have some fun with him. After all, this was the only muggle to whom she could tell her truth. “They’re twins. It’d be a bit sticky if they didn’t know, don’t you think?”

“Well, they wouldn’t have to know about me.” Ashby continued, “And, just out of curiosity, how did that happen?”

Hermione did not dignify his first comment with a response. 

“Oh, we bumped into each other in King’s Cross and, well, you know…” She threw a rock, “One thing led to another and we realized that we got on well together. They’re in Egypt on holiday, and I’m here.” She watched it skip seven times, “And anyway, I’m faithful to them.”

He grinned, “Except when you’re with their brother.”

“Oh…” Hermione said airily,  feeling rage in her soul. “That’s not cheating. For someone who does it enough, I know.” 

At that point, they stood there in silence until Hermione was out of stones and she walked up the beach. She did not let herself become angry. She was only angry at herself.

How like her to realize that she had feelings she needed to face when her boys weren’t here. 

Ashby didn’t approach her again, though he did give her strange looks every now and again. When he did, Hermione decided that he was simply still trying to figure out how to skip rocks into the sea without magic. 

The next night, Hermione tried something new. She knew that she could send feelings down the bond, so she thought that perhaps, she might be able to send sensations. She sat upon the cliff near the cottage, let her feet dangle over the edge, and closed her eyes. She focused on the wind whipping around her, the sound and smell of the spray of the sea below her, and the clouds rolling in the sky above her. 

She pictured what she saw behind her closed eyes, and pictured herself as she was in the moment, her skater dress flapping gently around her knees. And this time, instead of picturing herself doing something with her magic with that information, she let it fill her soul. She pushed every sensation she felt onto that flickering light within herself. 

After a long second, she felt surprise bounce back from one of the lights, and a quiet sort of wondrous pride from the other. She thought of the Mars Bar in her backpack, and the surprise turned to envy when the wondrous pride shifted into humor and laughter. She knew who was who in this moment, and as she sat by the cliffs, she didn’t feel so isolated. In solitude, she spent the evening in the close company of the people she loved best. 

Magic was a beautiful thing. 

And it was her truth.

* * *

Two days later, her mother surprised her with tickets on the International Floo line. She was expected in Alexandria. She would be leaving from the station in Paris in less than four hours. She had a layover in Bucharest. When she held the tickets in her hand, her respect for her parents grew. They had given as they had received.

They were respecting her in ways she could not fathom. 

Hermione thanked her parents, relief bubbling in her soul, and went to her room to pack a bag. She had never been to Egypt, but she knew enough to pack skirts and other breathable items that would cover the skin, keeping her cooler, as well as hats. 

She wore, among other things, a high waisted skirt and flats to travel, and was ready to leave for the station in twenty minutes, her wand up her sleeve and two books shrunken in her pocket, her magical passport firmly in hand. Hermione got on the muggle train to Paris with her parents, and spent the next two hours wishing she had some Every Flavor Beans. 

Hermione had been struck this summer, more than ever, about how much she was truly a witch. She had adopted a lot of cultural practices relating to wizarding society. It didn’t make her less of a muggle raised person, but sometimes she wondered how she would find balance. It would be easier, she knew, when the boys were with her. She knew that, together, they would make the choices that would define their lives. Those choices would only be the ones they knew to be right, and good. 

In Paris, her father carried her suitcase as her mother lectured on safe travel. Hermione withstood this with grace, and hugged both of her parents. If nothing else, they respected that she was no longer exactly like them. Any parent had the same journey, but she knew, too, that magic had made things more complicated. 

The international floo line looked rather like a train, except that it had individual pods, rather like driverless cars on a rail, and used complex space and time wards to move those pods. She would floo in the traditional way, from fireplace to fireplace, once she was in Alexandria. Her parents had arranged for Molly to open the floo at the rented vacation house as part of their surprise to her. 

Her parents embraced her one final time, told her they would see her at home, and wished her well. Hermione went through the wizarding portal on the platform, was processed through security, found her gate, and settled into her pod. The witch that sealed her into her pod offered her tea and biscuits. Hermione accepted both, along with an extra quill, with a small packet of ink. 

With the final bell sounding before her departure, the witch handed her  magical visitors’ guides to both Romania and Egypt. She then lowered the side door next to the single seat, and added, “Goodbye from Paris!” 

Hermione waved goodbye, and felt the spells encase the pod. She was off like a shot. In a few hours, she’d be in Romania, and then Egypt. 

In the meantime, she turned on the Wireless in her pod, and listened to a bit of music. After hearing nothing but muggle music for ages, the discordant sounds were jarring until Hermione realized that she found them comforting. The sitar that carried the tune was augmented by tin cans and enchanted nails on a chalkboard, leading to a pleasantly complicated composition that enabled her to study the guides she’d been given. 

* * *

 

Bill Weasley had, upon his 17th birthday, made a promise in his heart to each of his siblings. Upon his majority, when his father presented him with his Great-Grandfather’s watch, Bill had slipped it on his wrist and vowed to be unlike every Weasley male he knew.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love his family, far from it, but he knew he had a chance as a man to make a difference in the lives of those he loved so deeply. 

He had sworn back in 1987 that he would never, ever, infringe upon the privacy of his siblings. He would give them the space they needed to grow, to be the people they were meant to be, to use the bathroom without waiting in a queue.

His principal expression of this vow had been simple. He waited for them to tell him things. He waited for them to express themselves. He was always there for them, always, and they knew it, but after nearly twenty years of not even having enough privacy to discover himself, he wanted to give them the gift of something else.

And anyway, it wasn’t like they didn’t have a slew of other people prying into every detail of their lives. 

Bill wanted to be different. He wanted to stand out and give them the best things he could give them.

And, for the most part, he kept his promise. He had worked very hard not to pry for information when Charlie had gone to Romania, when Percy had taken up with a Clearwater, or when Ron had somehow become fast friends with Harry Potter. He’d worked very hard to keep out of their lives, affording them a respect he had never known until he was living in Egypt. 

And yet, sometimes, he found himself breaking his promise despite the best of his efforts. He had spent too much time wondering about Hermione Granger. It took someone very strange to fit into their family as well as she did, but he knew she did, for Mum had added her to the clock that she took everywhere she spent more than a night.

Since their arrival in Egypt, he had found himself watching her hand on the family clock. 

It frequently noted that the H spoon was at a library, reading, or traveling. At other times, it would note that she with a dentist. When Bill had asked his mother why they had a muggle profession on the clock, she had explained to him that she had added it for the Granger parents, so that they would know when Hermione was safe in their care. He thereby stopped assuming that she had terrible teeth. 

He didn’t like that he had spent so very long considering this child, or the fact that when his parents had mentioned her coming to visit for a weekend, he had agreed with the thought that he would now get to observe her.

He was a grown man. Being curious about his brother Ron’s friend was absurd, and reeked of sheer nosiness. 

Bill accepted this personal failing. When the aforementioned Friday came, Bill arranged to stay back with his parents to welcome the girl. He said he was playing host. He knew he was a nosey parker. He arranged himself in a chair by the fire, sighing as his mother fussed, even as it piqued his own sense of curiosity. 

Mum squeezed Dad when they heard the Floo open and the clock chime an arrival.

The soot cleared, and out stepped a rather unremarkable young girl. She was short, about 5’1’’ if anything. Her petite frame allowed her to be, as Aunt Muriel might have said, rather abundant and outside the bounds of what his Aunt considered to be decorous. He hadn’t, in his family’s articulation of her, expected her to seem so quite overtly feminine, wearing pink and black and having her hair neatly fixed. 

She wiped the soot off of her sleeves as Mum wrapped her in a hug, her curly hair escaping from the braided coil on her neck that he assumed had once been neat. International Flooing was quite windy.  Her hair was bound up, but escaped everywhere. It was then, in the next split second, that Bill noticed her aura. He’d been trained to develop his natural ability to see auras and magical signatures as easily as he breathed, and it was hard not to look at hers. 

He’d never seen one like hers, before.

It was beyond description or categorization. At first glance, she was this unassuming teenage girl who seemed, by all accounts, bookish and awkward. But her aura filled the entire room, in a way that Bill, after years working with auras couldn’t recall ever seeing before in one so young, or even at all. Her aura commanded her attention, and he knew why his mother always said people loved her and turned to her when she came into a room. 

At second glance, there was something off about her aura. The colors were diverse and pulsing, a thing of such wonder and interest that he forgot himself and stared, not at her, but rather at the colors and patterns that shifted as she grew more comfortable talking and visiting. Her aura was too complex, too deep, for it to be the burgeoning aura of a teen girl just about fourteen. It flared with earthen magics. 

Her aura filled the room, not overpowering the typical three foot auras of his family, but rather energetically supporting theirs in a way that seemed to be at once very empathetic and very logical. Bill wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Her aura was worthy of study. Had he had any scholarly abilities, he would have suggested to her that she submit to testing. 

Bill stopped short when, upon studying the edges of her massive aura he noted that there was no dark line delineating her edges, nor did her aura fade into softness at the edge. He aura kept going, as though it was connected to something larger. 

Her aura bloomed with positive energy as she greeted Mum and Dad. Bill forced himself to look away for her aura, simply because not looking at someone’s aura was basic civility. It was a highly private thing, and just because he was an expert at magical signatures and auras, didn’t mean that he could set aside ethics in the name of curiosity. 

Her aura bloomed with golds just before he blinked, and forced himself to refocus his attention on the person before him and not her magical energy or the manifestation of it. 

They were introduced, and Hermione considered him with expressive eyes, thanking him for his hospitality and asking him if they might spend some time discussing his work. After he promised, she asked if he would care to offer his professional opinions on the direction of some of her research. 

He agreed, naturally, amused by the contradictions so readily apparent to him. Her aura was this powerful, soft, emotive, and wondrous expression of deep sensitivity and awareness, and her words and her questions were laser sharp and focused. 

“Hermione, they’ll be time for chit-chat later.” Mum assured her, “Let Arthur take your bags up to Ginny’s room, then, and we’ll get you something to eat.”

“Molly…” Hermione began, and Bill knew that she was trying to avoid stuffing herself with his Mum’s cooking a few hours before she put dinner on the table, “I’m happy to wait until dinner. I had some soup in Bucharest.”

“Soup in Bucharest?” Mum tutted, as though food at the Floo station was contaminated gloop unfit for even a boggart. 

Bill rolled his eyes as his mother took Hermione round the arm, and continued, “Now, dear, you’re still not quite yourself after that unfortunate incident last term. You need nutritively dense food. You’re at about 64% capacity now.” Mum smiled, “And we won’t get you back up to feeling yourself without a few snacks now and again, will we?”

Bill must have made a sound as shock registered in his body. His mother couldn’t have meant what he thought she meant. It was impossible. He had misunderstood. There was no way, was there? There couldn’t be. There just couldn’t be… 

Mum broke off and looked to Bill, “I was telling you, Bill, wasn’t I, that Hermione’s magical core was almost totally drained around Christmas, wasn’t I?”

Bill breathed, “No, you hadn’t mentioned it.”

When they went into the kitchen, Bill watched as Hermione’s massive and ever changing aura lingered as it slowly faded from the room. He saw colors dance in front of his eyes when he closed them. That, that, was 64% of that child’s capacity? 64% fucking percent. Clients he knew to be magically powerful people would have killed for  one one-hundredth of her power. Who the hell was she? 

Bill wheezed. This was what he got, he supposed, for making assumptions and being a nosy parker, wasn’t it? But how in the hell did she have an aura larger than any he had previously encountered or studied? Something told Bill that, as reluctant as he was to be a sticky beak, he had just resigned himself to being one where Hermione Granger’s magical capacity was concerned. 

* * *

Upon settling down to some cheesy vegetable casserole, Hermione considered her plans for the weekend. She was beyond overjoyed to be here, to be in the same place as the fabled Library of Alexandria.

As Molly asked after her time in France, Hermione began to explain all the things she had done in France. In retrospect, she had enjoyed herself. There had been quite a lot to read and to see, and Hermione was glad to have gone.

“Though, really, I’m just glad to be…” Hermione changed the word her heart had suggested, “…here, you know?”

Molly set a piece of chocolate cake down before her, with a spoon and a glass of milk. Hermione supposed her arm had been sufficiently twisted. “I know, Hermione.” Molly agreed, “These vacations are very special to your parents, though, and their time with you is so very finite.” 

Hermione knew this to be true on multiple levels. She took a bite of her cake, and nodded. When she had swallowed down the gooey frosting with a swig of milk, she finally spoke. “So, where is everyone?”

Molly smiled. “I figured you’d want to settle in, so I sent everyone to the market. They should be back any second.” 

Not long after Molly made this pronouncement did the clock chime loudly, an indication that several people were coming home. Hermione went to the corner of the kitchen, and sat on the third step. She was nothing if not a decent prankster by way of exposure to masters in the art. 

George carried the first load of groceries into the kitchen, “Mum, they didn’t have any of those breads you wanted, but the guy said—-”

“That he’d owl some tonight.” Fred finished, setting down another crate of food. “And Mum, we’ve been thinking that we might Floo over to France for the weekend, if you can fix it with Dad.”

Hermione saw Molly suppress a grin and avoid looking in her direction. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, boys.”

“Mum, we’ve been really great—-” Gred insisted, looking at Forge for backup. 

Obviously, this proposal was something they had planned. “But we feel really twitchy and unbalanced, and it’s been three weeks, okay, and—-”

“Three weeks, two days, and seventeen hours, accounting for the time difference.” Hermione spoke from the base of the stairs in the corner of the room letting Molly scoot by her on her way out, “But who’s counting, really?”

Hermione braced herself for the very welcome onslaught of magical energy that rushed over her as their faces broke out in smiles and Hermione found herself squeezed against two, suddenly taller and broader, young men. The spark of their connections flared within her and Hermione buried the side of her face against Fred as George buried his face in her hair. 

After a long second, Hermione sighed. “I’ve missed you both, so, so, much.” 

She didn’t feel lonely now, not physically, for they were twined around her like a double helix, and not emotionally, for her soul rejoiced at their unity. Hermione shuddered with the way that flickering energy in her soul danced with joy. The flame was blending, again, building into one flickering flame instead of three.

It was, by far, a most welcome sensation, only compounded by her hands on their skin and their heartbeats resounding around her.

Hermione felt herself slipping down into herself, and knew what was happening in her soul and in her body. After weeks of feeling tense and edgy, there was a languid, boneless quality to her form that was rooted in her soul. It had happened after the incident with the diary, she recalled, but not like this, not quite so much. Then, she had been achey and flu-ish, and cold. Now, now, though, she just wanted to let go. 

Her boys noticed this, because they were so very clever and caring.

 “You know…” Fred’s arm anchored her to him, even as George bore the bulk of her weight. “I think international floos are pretty draining.”

Hermione felt George’s smirk in her hair. “Don’t you agree, Kitten?”

Hermione did, very much so. “Utterly exhausting. Just hold me for a while, please.” 

A look passed between them, and it was clear that they all knew what was happening. They understood what those words, said that way, meant, as they had agreed. 

She was glad that they all had read about and discussed this, knowing it would happen at some point as their bond formed. Hermione had hated the idea of springing this on them, so they had made sure to discuss it several times as soon as she knew about it, and then again over time.

She had had a feeling that she wouldn’t be able to articulate her needs coherently, and she had wanted them both to be comfortable stepping in and taking charge. She hadn’t wanted to overwhelm them. So, they had talked it out and developed a plan. 

She needn’t have worried, and in the moment, she didn’t. There was some benefit to being bonded with twins, because they communicated quickly and well. They headed up the stairs just as everyone else flooded the room from the market. Hermione’s sole focus was on her boys as she settled back into the middle of an enlarged bed. 

 She didn’t care what was going on elsewhere as the world narrowed to encapsulate the three of them. Her fingers zinged with magic as she fondly reached out for her boys, carding her fingers through Fred’s hair and down over his cheek, as George made short work of her shoes.

She had expected, largely because this was happening here and not at home, to be settled into her own bed, though the idea that they would have left was unfathomable. 

Hermione giggled gently at the absurdity of the notion. Shoes off, George settled against her other side, knitting their fingers together. Hermione slid her knee sock clad foot up George’s calf as she let her hand settle into the placket of Fred’s light henley. 

Her eyes fluttered closed on a stuttered and breathless exhalation.

This was everything, everything she had missed. There was nothing she needed or wanted to do in this moment except let her eyes fall closed, and let her magic intermingle with theirs, swelling in the air around them, making her feel yet more and more languid and satiated with each beat of their hearts. 

Hermione knew she was not alone in these feelings. She could feel them echoed in her soul, coming back with double the intensity, and pulling her deeper into the spaces where endorphins ruled, and lulled her into a rest that was beyond any sleep that she’d gotten in weeks, even though she was not asleep, and was floating along on her emotions, moving slowly towards the deep void of her headspace. 

“Just rest, Kitten.” Fred’s instructions were gentle against her ear. Part of wanted to see their faces, wanted to know that they would always be here, but something else within her compelled her to let the eyelids she’d been forcing open to fall shut again at his directive. She wanted to stay like this, with them, always.

George’s leg was a gentle weight twined around hers, and his fingers were gentle as they soothed the barest inch of skin that was exposed between the top of her skirt at the bottom of her top. The gentle pressure of being so close to her boys, even as George fingers were light against her, was her idea of perfect. 

“We’ll be here when you want to get up.” George promised, as though he could read her single hesitation. “You know you need this, Kitten. Let go. You’re so brave.” 

Beyond response, Hermione sighed, and fell evermore into the euphoric rest of her roaring void, their words falling over her like a gentle rain, even as she no longer paid attention to what they were saying. She knew it was all soothingly positive. 

Behind her eyes, three stands of magic danced, a riot of colors and emotion that felt like the purest form of peace. 

* * *

Later, Hermione leaned against George as she sat in the middle of the bed.

She looked between them, and refused the water she was being offered, though she was quite keen on cuddles for the duration of this recapitulation. Her legs felt like jelly and her body felt boneless, but her mind was clear and sharp. 

“That…” Hermione reminded them, “Was our bond.” 

“After a handful of weeks apart?” George was skeptical, not because he doubted it, but rather because he was surprised at the intensity of it all. Hermione knew that it had been the same on her own end. 

“It’s textbook, George.” Fred asserted, his touch soothing and his focus intent, “Her body was integrating and re-stabilizing our magics and energies.”

George colored slightly. Hermione rested more heavily against him, utterly unwilling to let them retreat from her in any way now that they were together again. “I thought that level of it, though, was mostly a sex thing.”

“What’s sex,” Hermione asked, “But energetic transference, truly?”

She got blushes in return. Silly boys. 

“Oh, don’t blush.” Hermione insisted, “I’m serious. It felt good, I feel much better than I did, and I am going to assume that the same is true for both of you unless you say otherwise.” 

Their reassuring responses were all she really needed.

And yet, Hermione wanted to make something very clear. She wanted this to be said, once again.

After experiencing this for the first time, they had the right to reconsider the idea that this was something they were comfortable with, “I can’t promise I won’t drop like that again, but I can fight it more, handle it myself. It’s happened to a lesser degree after the troll and the stone and the diary because that was magical backlash and reabsorption. I didn’t really try today, mostly because I really wanted you both with me.”

She felt George’s words in his chest as he spoke them, “Hermione, you know that your trust is the most beautiful thing in our lives.”

“And we knew we’d experience this, and we know it will intensify.” Fred reminded her. After all, this was Triad Bonding 101 material. The reintegration of energies and the accompanying responses from the Focus was one of the basic topics found in most every book she had read. 

“We both told you we wanted this with you, and we meant it.”  Fred agreed, tucking the blanket closer around her more fully, though really she wasn’t very chilly anymore. “It’s just an emotional thing, and it wasn’t something we planned to happen here and…” 

“And…?” Hermione pressed, wondering at once what they might say, and also wondering if her boys were thinking of all the times she had skirted up to a moment like the one they'd just had.

Interestingly, Hermione realized upon reflection that each time they had seen her again, they had provided her with whatever sort of aftercare and reassurance that had suited that moment, if it had been a pot of tea and fruit, or a simple hug and assurances of their friendship. She trusted their past actions as much as she trusted their reassurances now. 

“We wouldn’t have planned it to happen with how many other people around.” George grinned then, smoothing his hands gently down her arms, “And we would have gotten chocolate or something before coming up here.” 

“I did.” Fred produced a wrapped bar of Honeydukes from the floor, and snapped of a liberal piece before handing it to her, “You need the oxytocin, Hermione.”

Hermione ate it. “You know…” She bit into the second square of her piece, “I’m glad this happened. At least its incentive to stick together.” 

That is, if they didn't want this to happen again. Hermione didn't feel that way, but... 

“That, but…” Fred asked, as George nudged her ear, and whispered how very proud he was of her.

“But…” Hermione elaborated, catching Fred’s gaze as she caught the hand that George was pressing to her shoulder, “I could get used to it.” 

She did not say that she meant that she could really enjoy it when it was a thing not needed by her body and her soul, but simply wanted as an experience shared by the three of them. Not that she wanted to only experience this, but as part of a full and varied range of experiences, it would be nice. She did not say that being slowly and carefully brought into a trance-like state by the merest brush of their hands and their voices was, officially, one of the most magical experiences of her life. 

She didn’t have to say it, not now, not yet. They both knew what she did not articulate. Gently, Fred rested his hand on her knee, and ran his fingers gently along the soft flesh there. “One day.”

George shared a look with his brother, over her head. Hermione saw it mirrored in Fred’s eyes as George agreed, “That’s a promise.”

* * *

While at the market the next morning, Ron saw one of the girls whose parents worked at the Ministry’s embassy here, and she invited him and all of his siblings to a street party that was happening that night. Ron said they’d be there, but as he told his parents the story of his meeting, Hermione knew they were unlikely to get permission. 

Molly and Arthur were surprisingly lenient as they gathered around the table for brunch. Arthur said they might go as long as they stuck together, and Ginny whooped with glee.

Hermione watched her heart break as Molly said, “Of course you’ll stay with me, Ginny, and we’ll have some fun here with the Wireless.” 

“But Mum!” Ginny cried, her face awash with misery, setting down her fork, “I’m going to be twelve! Why can’t I go if Hermione can?”

“There is, regrettably, a difference between fourteen and twelve, Ginny.” Arthur replied, buttering his toast liberally, “I’m very sorry, but there will be other times.” 

“Not in Egypt!” Ginny cried. “And not like this!” 

Hermione shot a look of apology to her boys, and spoke, “Well, I’ll stay back with you, Gin.”

Ginny shot her a grateful smile, “Oh, Hermione, you’re an angel.” 

George’s eggs fell off of his fork and he sighed, “Well, there goes—”

“Our plans.” Fred finished, looking at their mother, “If Hermione won’t go, we won’t go.”

Ron spoke around a mouthful of bacon, which Hermione thought to be rather disgusting. “And I’m not going with just Percy.”

“I’m not going at all.” Percy returned, slicing his eggs with precision. “I’ve letters to work on.”

“Oh, Penelope!” The rest of his siblings intoned as one, with a very large sigh and much dramatic flair. 

“Why is it always my relationship that is mocked, I’d like to know?” Percy asked, crossly, “Nobody says a word about anyone else.”

George patted his brother roughly, “Perce, you know you’re fun to tease.”

“And Hermione’d hurt anyone who hurt our tender male feelings.” Fred asserted, “Wouldn’t you?”

“No.” Hermione replied shortly. They were big boys, after all, well able to handle their own emotions. Hermione tried once again to let go of the frustration she felt at having missed their growth spurt. In the last three weeks, they’d done a fair bit of growing, and it was a hallmark of their final period of maturation as they had physically grown into the power of their magics. Controlling such magic was a very physical thing, and it had manifested in very interesting ways.

They now both towered over her, and wasted no time in teasing her over it. Hermione rather was more interested in their new definitions along their bodies, but of course she hadn't seen those. Just touched. 

Molly wavered, “I suppose we might all go as a family.” She looked to the man at the other end of the table, “Would you care to go out this evening, Arthur?”

“Well, now, Mollywobbles, I’d never have thought of it.” Arthur winked, “Together since 1965, and she still fancies me.” 

The children at the table groaned. Hermione herself thought them rather  sweet. She wouldn’t mind being like them, in the most general sense. They were together, and they were happy, and they pranked their children. 

“That’s ice cold, Mum.” Ron muttered, reaching for his milk. “You two planned that all along!” 

* * *

Hermione put the street party out of her mind, focusing on her upcoming trip as they cleaned up brunch. Hermione shifted to her main event, the point of the entire trip. Hermione enjoyed her day in the library.

As any sensible researcher did, she woke up considerably earlier than Ginny, and was ready and waiting by the time everyone had come down to prepare brunch.  

She explained her book lists, and her archive lists, and wasted no time in expounded upon everything she wanted to do and all the texts she wanted to see. “Imagine!” She gushed, barely able to keep from bouncing, “Being in the same room as Plato’s works, and Jane Austen’s books. And imagine being able to immerse yourself in them like a memory, and to talk to avatars of the authors and historical figures and—”

“Are you ever going to stop to breathe?” Ginny asked, wiping down the table. Percy had already run off to write dear Penelope. 

“Who can breathe at a time like this?” Hermione asked. She spun around, and stopped quickly.  “That reminds me, I did want to check out the full collection of—”

Ron looked to Fred and George, who were stacking the dried dishes, “You two are going to have such fun, aren’t you?”

“Yes, they—-” Hermione paused, “Oh, did you want to come along, Ron? I know you haven’t had time to prepare a list or two, and really there’s so much to see, and I’m sorry I didn’t think to ask you, but of course you’re invited, and there’s loads on chess there. You can even play a game against the ghosts of Grandmasters.” She looked at him with hope, “Oh, come, do!” 

He snorted. Hermione supposed he was considering it. 

She turned to Ginny, “And you’ll come, won’t you, Ginny? There’s whole rooms of Quidditch materials! You can immerse yourself in critical historical matches, even!” 

She nibbled on her bottom lip as she consulted her map of the library, and and addressed Fred and George, “Did you know that this is the largest wizarding library in the world? Now, I think we’ll begin…”

“I think…” Molly began, “That the library will remain standing long enough for you to eat what’s on your plate, Hermione.”

Hermione looked down to see that her unfinished plate hadn’t been scraped. She had put it on the pile to discard, she knew she had, but here it was on top of her lists on the counter. “But I didn’t put it there.”

“Didn’t you?” Molly smiled, “How odd. Eat it anyway.”

“Don’t any of you understand?” Hermione took her fork and shoveled in a bit of fruit. 

They were all looking at her as though she were insane, “Muggles are told that this library burned down as an excuse when they invoked the secrecy wards, and I have spent my entire life dreaming of this very moment. You cannot possibly comprehend—-” She stopped briefly to chew more food, because Molly was glaring in that way she did, “—what it is to know that something you once thought the stuff of dreams is actually reality.” 

Everyone was very interested, she knew, because they were still staring at her. George was hiding a grin, and Fred was awfully interested in putting away the dishes. But the rest of them were interested. 

Her mind switched tracks, “Speaking of reality, George, put down _Alice in Wonderland_ on my list of books to explore. I want to talk to the Cat. I’d really like a cat. But I know I’m getting an owl for my birthday. Maybe I should research…”

Hermione broke off sternly, “No! No. I have to focus.” She exhaled, and lectured herself.  “Focus. I can focus. I’m a very good Focus.” 

To this, Fred offered. “You’re going to stroke out if you don’t calm down.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. She was perfectly serene. And anyway, if she wasn’t, how could he blame her?

They were going to the famed Library of Alexandria, the famed library that was the epicenter of Wizarding scholarship and technology. The catalog was the largest and most organized in the world, with countless special collections. A visitor could jump into a text and live it, or interview characters or authors like they were right there. They could meet with some of the greatest minds that had ever once lived. They could even buy a coffee in the coffee shop, with funny and pithy literary names.

And today, today, Hermione was going to do all of that and more. 

Today was the day. 

“Oh, no.” Hermione mused, “I’ve packed snacks in case we get sluggish.” Hermione allowed, “Brain food, you know.” 

She turned to Arthur, “We should be back in time for dinner, but if not—”

Ron interrupted, staring at her with wide eyes. “Do you mean to tell me that you intend to spend all day there?”

“It’s not very long, I know, but I had other pressing matters to attend to yesterday.” Hermione replied, “And anyway, we’ve already decided to come back. I plan to do a good overview today, and then come back and focus on one collection when I can.” 

“Get out while you still can.” Ron faux-whispered, “You don’t have actually go with her. Nobody’s making you.” 

“Shut up, Ronald.” Ginny cried, “Personally, I think we should all be happy that Hermione is happy.”

Hermione was rather pleased to note that they didn’t agree with Ron. She folded her map and stuck it in her pocket, and waved her wand to organize her papers carefully. 

“Oh, we wouldn’t miss this…” Fred raked his gaze over his little brother. 

“You wouldn’t understand, Ronnikins.” George added, “So sad for you, really.”

“We weep.” Fred replied, “Really we do.” 

“You will cry if you make me later!” Hermione finished packing up their things, “The reading room opens in ten minutes. I want good spots as a base of command.” 

“And thus, mon frère, she has begun taking over the world.” George looked to Fred. 

Fred accepted this as truth, “Let the world burn, George.”

“Do not talk about fires in the library!” Hermione called, “Why, they had such trouble putting that last one out! You’ll get us kicked out…” 

 

From the moment she walked in the door, past the columns that were older than the Pharaohs, Hermione was reverent, calm, and focused. Between themselves, the twins wondered if Hermione was shocked, in awe, or overwhelmed, or simply if she was totally in control and focused. In any case, they didn’t ask, because they were too distracted and enthralled by the joy in her eyes.

The most wonderful library in the world was made amazing because they saw it through her eyes. 

George told Fred that he wanted, always, to see new things in life through her eyes. Fred had just grabbed him around the shoulders, and trailed after Hermione, agreement plain on his face. 

* * *

Despite their late arrival because of being unavoidably delayed at the library, the street party was fun. There was free food everywhere, and fairy lights and lamp illuminated the narrow streets of the Old Quarter of Wizarding Alexandria. Ron and Ginny, with Molly trailing behind, headed over to the street artists who were creating beautiful art with their wands in the sky and on the ground and on the canvases. 

Hermione, George, and Fred moved through the throng. For the first time, Hermione held their hands in wizarding public. Here, people assumed more accurately what they were, and it was nice. It felt right. 

It wasn’t too hard to guess at, Hermione supposed, given the way that the twins looked at her in the twinkling lights, and given the way that they had no issue in keeping close in the crowds, moving within her space to buffer her from the merry crowds in a way that felt like, if not seemed, a gesture of intimacy. 

Hermione hardly noticed the bustling crowds around them. The music and dancing was plentiful, as was the free food. They laughed together over the things they saw, and spent time in one another’s company. Every so often, she would catch one of the twins looking her way and realize, with a surge of elation, that he wanted to kiss her. 

Hermione wanted that, relished in the feeling of being wanted and wanting in equal measure, only to be totally disappointed when Fred’s smile would quirk, and he’d look away, or George’s grin would brush his fingers down her spine and turn away gently as his smile turned sly.

They knew what they were doing. 

Damn them. 

Hermione knew she had options, but she wasn’t going to make the first move.

They’d known that for years. That ball was in their court. Between the looking and the touching and the laughing and the darkness and the fairy lights and the music and the moonlight, Hermione thought she might explode if they didn’t do something. 

She didn’t care who started it. She didn’t care if they bloody well pulled out a galleon and flipped it for who got to kiss her first, so long as they both did it throughly and in short order. 

Hermione’s hopes rose as they turned down a slightly less crowded avenue. Her pulse skittered. They were in relative seclusion off of the main streets of the festival, under fairy lights and the moon, with magic floating in the air. Hermione knew that her mouth surely tasted like the fruity drink she’d cunningly consumed not long ago. She was in the company of two people she loved to the core of her soul.

There was nothing else she could have asked for in this moment.

Hermione resolved that if her boys were going to be snails about the whole thing, well then she was just going to have to be a girl of the 90s, and make her wishes known. Hermione considered her words. She decided demanding anything. Perhaps they weren’t ready. 

She dismissed that thought. This was probably part of their blasted Plan, after all. She could just see it now. There had to be a list of ways they intended to bedevil her like this until she was breathless and mindless. The air was heavy with perfume and her expectations. 

And, her thoughts fleeing her mind, it was happening again. George’s sly smile met Fred’s quirky one above her head, and Hermione knew there was communication going on there.

She’d missed seeing their growth spurt, but right in this moment, she didn’t mourn it. Communication was good. Communication was critical. If only one of them would communicate with her, here. She’d just fuck right off home if they wanted to grin at each other all night. 

But no. 

She’d waited this long, she could wait a bit longer.

They were clearly reaching an accord they intended to present to her for her consideration. All in all, it was rather nice not to have to worry about logistics. She’d scored big in that regard, even if they made something so simple so complicated. At least they did take care of her, and never put her in the middle, though she wished they would in some other ways.

She was about ready to write a number of her palm, ask them each to pick a number, and then kiss the winner. Kiss them first, that was. She had no intention of not kissing them both, thoroughly and repeatedly. 

Flip a coin, pick a number, pick a color, Hermione chanted in her mind, rock paper scissors. Roll a dice, pull the petals off of a flower, something, anything.

She didn’t even care if they asked her to decide. She had a coin in her pocket, and she could break up a straw for drawing in two seconds flat. 

Just as Hermione licked her lips to speak, she spotted him, and groaned. It wasn’t the way she wanted to be making that sound, out of annoyance and not pleasure, but it was unavoidable, as unavoidable as the freckly boy waving and calling their names.

She muttered, “I swear to God, get rid of him or I will kill you both.”

“Now, Kitten…” George whispered, with a chuckle. He accompanied this edict with a gentle caress of her side. Pranking skills should not translate to flirting aptitude. They should be gawky and geeky, but they weren’t. She lost her breath when he added, “Be patient.”

“Why?” Fred inquired, with his own brand of charm. She wanted to brain him repeatedly. Her knees were literally shaking, when his knowing eyes glinted, “Did you have plans for us?”

“They were much different than the ones I’ve got now.” Hermione returned, just as Ron, his face sticky with food came upon them. 

“Hey!” He accused, “Where have you three been?” He wedged, somehow, his way in between Hermione and George, which of course made Fred snicker, which made George grab the back of his brother’s shirt, leaving him high and dry as well. 

Hermione smirked and plotted Ron’s death. “Ron, say, do you know where Ginny is? Maybe you ought go find her?” 

But it was too late. 

The moment had passed. Hermione’s carefully orchestrated and mentally explored spontaneity was gone, and the spell of sensual and tender closeness that had been building around them all weekend, slowly and steadily, had ended. 

Hermione sighed, and took some of Ron’s fiteer, a thin pastry-like layered with icing sugar and baked fruits, and popped it into her mouth. She might as well eat her frustration. 

He looked at her askance, “I thought you’d be having a good time.”

“You!” She spluttered, “Have the situational awareness of a rock.” 

Ron thrust the food at her, “If you wanted something, all you had to do was ask.”

Behind her, George and Fred lost it, utterly. If a stinging hex landed upon each of them in tandem, and sobered them right up, Hermione would never admit to it. 

* * *

Even with her foiled hopes of being kissed, Egypt was magical.

Hermione was glad, upon considering it, that she had not gone to the pyramids and had instead poked around potions shops. “After all…” Ron remarked, as they walked along the Wizarding Quarter to the popular open air market in the evening to pick up more food for the  last dinner, “You might have blown them up.”

“There is that.” Hermione admitted. “I would have felt really bad about that, considering all the research that goes on in them.” 

“George and Fred threatened to throw me over one, you know.” Ron told her, dragging his feet in the dirt. “They said it was payback. I said, ‘For what?’ and then they said it was none of my business and stopped off.” He continued, “What secrets could you three have?”

“We’re waiting for you to put together the facts yourself.” Hermione replied, looking down into the basket she carried, “So don’t ask me.”

“Well, Bill knows something, I’ll tell you that much.” Ron told her, “I heard him whispering with Mum, and you know nothing good comes of that.”

Hermione considered the fruits on offer. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

They were heading back to London tomorrow, at which point they would each go home. But, upon reflection, Hermione realized that this trip had been the stuff of dreams. After all, she had spent a whole day in the Library of Alexandria. It was, in the end, likely so much better than kissing. Kissing was fleeting, but those books would be there forever. 

Not, of course, that she had any data to compare.

Ah, well. She was going to have two whole terms to change that, wasn’t she? 

And if the boys had a plan they thought cunning, well, they had no idea of what her own plans were. 

They'd figure it out. Her boys were smart. If only they were a bit quicker, though. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next? Year 3! That means I GOT TO WRITE REMUS, minus, of course, the bit about Sirius escaping.


	5. 1993-1994 School Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of BAMF Remus. No buckbeak, but yes to *slapping* the daylights out of Malfoy. 
> 
> Chocolate hearts and boggarts. 
> 
> Meditation and frustration. 
> 
> Also, nighttime quidditch is not my idea. I traced the idea back to this [post.](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/13/74/e5/1374e5bd7f4ea84699a17ce00ccc5eae.jpg) The ideas aren't wholly mine, but we all need more quidditch commentary from Lee and I could barely follow Germany playing Argentina without my friends rolling their eyes when I sat there like [this.](http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/9e/9e65b12dd4192d656b1767057d826372bec1f39ee98c6ecedc5bc792e54af1c4.jpg)
> 
> Best I stick to the hokey pokey, alright?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PoA was largely about justice, about seeking justice, and the failures of the system to seek and uphold that justice. Because Sirius is free, and has been since he took Harry from Hagrid and sent a scathing note to Dumbledore that said, "I'm his godfather, not you, and I didn't kill James and Lily, so even though you don't have a use for me, I'm keeping my kid." I had to look at things another way. 
> 
> Thereby, we get Hermione seeing injustice through the Furry Little Problem. There's so much I want to talk about in this chapter, so I would love comments!

Hermione moved into the compartment she intended to share with her friends, and slid the pocket door shut, only to find that it was packed with every Weasley aboard, minus the sole Prefect amongst them, and Harry. Hermione let her gaze fall over the assembled company in return to their silent acknowledgements wordlessly. 

The whole cabin seemed tense, and Hermione finally understood why when her gaze focused on the anomaly herein. Remus Lupin was sitting across from his son with a stern expression on his face. Hermione realized that her arrival had not even interrupted the ongoing lecture, “—my regret, I cannot trust my child to keep himself safe or to communicate with his parents. So, I’m coming along.”

“But Moony—” Harry began, only to be cut off by his parent, quelled by a rare but stern glare. 

"It's called parenting." Remus returned, firmly insisted, "Suck it up."

Hermione understood why Harry might feel that way, but she also knew that Remus and Sirius had spent much of the summer angry at them. They hadn’t been angry in a punishing sort of way, but rather they had looked upon them all with a quiet sort of pervasive terror.

Really, Hermione should have expected something like this to happen. Her parents would have come if they could have seen the school and taught medical modules. Let Death Eaters come, they’d go after them with drills. Her parents, after all, were retired from HM's Service, and her mother had seen hell with MSF. 

Hermione did her best to keep to the walls of the cabin. From by the window, Fred mouthed, “He’s livid.” 

Hermione did not know if Fred words applied mostly to Harry or Remus, or to them both equally. Hermione resolved to keep out of the firing line on this one. Everyone said it was Sirius who was the disciplinarian, but Hermione knew better. Harry hated disappointing his Moomy, and that was correction enough to prevent most transgressions. 

“Secondly…” He said this with some frankness that hurt Hermione’s heart because politics had kept Remus from something he loved. Hermione did not understand why he was married to Sirius should matter in the way that she had long assumed it did, “I’m here because even though I’ve a Mastery in the subject, they finally hit the bottom of the barrel in Lockhart and were more than eager to take me on.” 

“I’m sorry.” Harry sighed, true compassion in his voice, “But could you not, you know, be you, at school?”

“What?” Remus grinned, “You don’t want me to pick up your dirty laundry off the loo floor and tell you to wash your face?” 

Harry huffed. Hermione was glad to see that they were on even footing once again. Harry loved his parents, and any discord between them weighed heavily on him. 

“I’ll do my best.” Remus agreed, “Now, begone with you, miscreants. This is my cabin.” 

Hermione didn’t get first shot at the door despite her proximity, mostly because Harry, Ron, and Ginny bolted. She gathered that the lecture had been quite scathing.Hermione was just getting ready to slip from the door, when Remus softly stopped her, “I’ve not finished with you three.”

Hermione turned around, and realized that the lecture she was in for was quite different from the one Harry and Ron had gotten just now. 

Remus arched an eyebrow as if to ask, “Scared?”

Cooly, Hermione perched herself on the seat across from Remus. She pressed her knees and ankles together, and then crossed them gently. Her spine did not touch the back of the seat. Gently, she inclined her head, “Proceed, then.”

“Thank you for your permission.” Remus returned. His smile was genuine. 

His smile didn’t last long. His expression sobered as he looked steadily at her between the twins, at the points where they touched. George’s palm settled gently onto her back, his fingers splaying over the small of her back, as Fred’s hand settled on her opposite knee. Hermione welcomed their touches, and would have held their hands if she was not lazily folding them in her lap. 

After all, they could not really be what they were with such openness in most places and spaces. She’d be damned before she hid her authentic self and her relationships from her family. Remus counted as much as Sirius and her own parents and the Weasleys, in her mind. 

Remus began, carefully and objectively outlining his disappointment and his displeasure at their actions at the end of the term. He ripped apart every argument they’d had for keeping their families in the dark, and obliterated every justification they offered for not only the Chamber, but also for the opening of the Chamber earlier in the year.

He had objections that were rooted in the realities of their lives, and so his lecture was painful in a different way than her parent’s own objections had been. He was not as empathetic as Molly and Arthur had been, either. 

 He outlined all of this in a very calm and controlled way. It was eerie, as though he never, never, ever, lost control, and the calmer he became, the more angry he truly was. The silence between his words was chilling. 

“Do you three even know what you’re doing?” Remus asked, not expecting an answer."Do you even have the words to describe what you did or can do?"

By now, Hermione knew better than to try and offer one. It would only earn an admonishment to be quiet in a lethally calm voice. “You don’t. And yet, with an untrained, unfocused, undeveloped bond, you three tried to communicate with the forces of Darkness, and a basilisk through some of the best shields known to man.”

He added, “You don’t. And yet, you messed around with a horcruxed journal, nearly sacrificing your souls in the process. You induced a grand mal seizure in order to follow a bloody hunch.”

Hermione felt compelled to defend them in this regard, “We did come to Sirius—”

“Am I finished?” Remus asked, quelling her with a glance, “As I was saying, after said proceedings, you three went after the basilisk without any idea of the significance of what you were doing, without support. In doing so, you instinctively destroyed said horcrux. Do you realize that you could have all three died in one fell swoop? Do you realize, any of you, the power that you wield?”

“Of course you don’t.” He chuckled, “You couldn’t possibly. But you will.” 

“Remus…” Fred warned, though Hermione didn’t know exactly what he was warning him about, though George knew. She could see it in their shared glance.

“Starting now, starting this very second, you three are in training.” He encompassed them with a single glance, “Bonds are something of a specialty of mine, you see. How lucky for you three that I’m here this year.”

“We’re just…” George began, his hand sliding down her back. 

Fred shared in his sentiment, and rounded off the statement. “Absolutely thrilled.” 

“I’m sure you are.” Remus returned, “I have rules, however, which will no idea damper your enthusiasm. You will have training sessions at least three times a week. They are tantamount to your survival. You will do what I say, how I say it, with no pranks, no arguments, and no subterfuge.” 

Hermione exhaled. She was not good with authority figures. This was going to be hell. 

Remus continued right on, “But I’m not going to be a stern taskmaster. I understand I’m intruding on something very, very personal and very sacred and I promise I will do all I can to respect you all and to put us on a collegial footing.”

“What exactly are your rules?” Hermione ventured, liking this less and less and less as each second passed. She didn’t like to be hampered or told what to do. It rankled. 

“They’re simple.” Remus allowed, “I will guide you in the developing of your earth magics, will help you to control and manage your power, and will teach you ways to effectively use it in battle, and in life. In short, I will keep you three alive and keep the earth spinning on its axis.” 

Hermione knew that he had to overstating the case. They couldn’t possibly still the rotation of the earth, could they? As it stood now, Hermione felt like she couldn’t even control the flares of her earth magic. It was cyclical, but the point stood. 

“In return, you will also abide by the following rules. One, there will be no secrets. You will communicate anything and everything to me regarding your bond, regardless of the time or the situation.” Remus exhaled, “Furthermore, you will under no circumstances consummate your bond at Hogwarts.”

“Remus!” Three voices spoke a the same moment, one chiding, one annoyed, and one shocked. 

“It’s either me, Molly, or Dumbledore. There is literally no one else in the UK qualified to educate you. You would have had, traditionally, another Triad to lead you, but you don’t and I am sorry. I am so sorry for that loss in your lives, because it is a profound one. They would have loved you as we all do.” Remus said, and Hermione knew he meant it. 

He continued, “But shall we go and get your Mum to tell you not to have penetrative intercourse so you don’t level the castle? Or shall I fetch Dumbledore to tell you that beginning to interact with your bond is going to be a deeply unifying and challenging process? Because really, if you want to talk about Hermione’s headspace with Dumbledore, I’m happy to abdicate the role.” 

They shared a speaking glance as their individual protests died on their lips. 

After a moment, Remus continued, “It has to be said, and the sooner you get over your hesitations in talking about a very vital part of your bond with me, the better I’ll be able help you all.” Remus held up a hand, “To avoid further stammering and blushing, just let me get this out and then we can talk about a training schedule for your tactical training. Do whatever you want, so long as there is no penetration.” 

“That’s horribly heteronormative!” Hermione cried, struck by the injustice of it all. “Why should one act have more meaning that any others? It’s dumb.”

“Hey, your helpful gay advisor doesn’t make the rules for a heterosexual triad.” Remus cracked a smile, “I’m not giving you details on that right now because I know you're not there yet, but trust me, you do not want to consummate your triad. You three can't cope with the power and potential you have now. No need to increase it until you’re at least 35.”

Hermione huffed. She couldn’t even figure out how to organically work kissing into already complex relationships, so she was relatively sure sex was off the table for at least a decade, given the pace the twins seemed comfortable with right now. That said, 35 was a bit much. 

“This won’t be so bad.” Remus addressed them. He wasn’t only tell them that, Hermione realized, but also himself. “The homework is even fun. For the next two days, I want you all to practice sending information down the bond. Not just feelings, which I assume came innately, but moments, situations, snapshots of current conversations, things like that.” 

“How are we going to be graded on this?” Hermione asked, wondering how any of this could be evaluated. 

“There’s only one exam, but it happens a lot, or it will, if history is anything to go by.” Remus assured them, “That exam is survival. If you live, you’ve learned what you need to know.” He continued, “But if you want incentives and feedback during your training, Hermione, I’m not the one you should be asking.”

As their conversation wound down, Remus looked at them. “This whole thing can be bound up the three C’s of good relationship dynamics: Communication, Consideration, and Cooperation.”

As they were heading out the door, Hermione leading the way, Remus called out, “Oh! I almost forgot the extra C everyone forgets. Coordination!” 

Hermione thought she heard George mutter something about another C-word being suddenly more important, but she wasn’t entirely sure. And anyway, she wasn’t going to ask.

Sometimes, it was better to let things alone. 

* * *

Hermione, when summoned to McGonagall’s office the next morning, rehearsed what she would say in her mind.

Holding this time turner in her hand changed nothing. In fact, it only made her more certain that she had done the right thing in changing her mind. The box, after all, had been stamped as property of the Ministry for Magic. It had both the Ministry seal and the Unspeakables seal on the wooden lid, and if that wasn’t a sign that she had made the right choice, she didn’t know what one would look like. 

This choice had been a long time coming. She had made this choice on the way back from Egypt, when she had her first real experience with magical jet lag. She did not want to spend the entire year feeling like she had apparatated from New York to London several times every day. She did not want to put her health and her well being at such risk when there were other options no one had bothered to explore with her. A choice made without a full understanding of her options wasn’t truly a choice at all. 

Hermione knew she had to articulate her decision. There was a point in life where ambition for ambition’s sake became pointless. She didn’t want to sell out. She didn’t need to play their game. She didn’t need to do things in the Ministry approved way. She didn’t need to prove anything to anyone but herself, or do anything in a way that felt inauthentic and just plain stupid. 

Hermione looked at the power encapsulated in the hourglass, felt her magic pull, and shut the lid of the velvet lined wooden box with a snap. “I’m sorry, Professor, but I won’t be doing this.” 

This was her choice. She wasn’t going to sell her soul to the Ministry, or go through life thinking that just because they had once loaned her a time turner, that she now owed them loyalty. She could not be bought, and she knew that this, in giving her knowledge and the chance to access it, was a bid for her allegiance and her loyalty. She never wanted to give them leverage over her. 

Deep in her soul, Hermione knew that her loyalty had to stay clearly defined. The Ministry, she knew, would have to change, and she wanted nothing to stand in the way of being at the helm of those changes. Hermione knew her choices had to send a clear message. 

She set the box back on the desk. The Ministry could not buy the Brightest Witch of the Age, and they could not limit her. She would not let them. Sometimes, it seemed that freedom only looked like freedom. Sometimes, these compromises were more limiting than if she had only found her own to achieve the objectives she sought. 

“Miss Granger!” McGonagall’s eyes widened, “You were adamant that you wanted to take these courses. I believe strongly in your potential, and I confess to some surprise.”

McGonagall had written countless letters of support and helped to petition the Ministry. It had, after all, been her idea. Hermione had been blinded by the idea of seeking more knowledge, taking classes that had been closed to her. She had swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, without stopping to ask if there was another way to eat the elephant or skin the cat. In Alexandria, she had stumbled on new avenues, and she had come to see her options as part of an array, rather than a dichotomy. 

“I’m still going to take the classes, Professor.” Hermione asserted, “But did you know that long term time turning contributes to various illnesses, and has the potential to accelerate the aging process, as well as disrupt brainwaves?”

“The time limits do prevent such illnesses to a great degree.” McGonagall shook her head, “You are very young and very gifted. I will not attempt to convince you, but I do wonder as to how you plan to eschew this gift, and to alter your schedule and plans.” 

Hermione explained briefly, “While I was at the Library of Alexandria this summer, I learned about various self-study methods. As the Hogwarts curriculum has largely been unchanged, with your support I would like to complete the courses I would have had to alter time to take by self-study, using the technology available.”

“Miss Granger, such an idea is highly unorthodox. We have not used self-study modules since World War I.” McGonagall replied, “It seems more sensible to go back in time, attend the coursework, and pop back to the present.”

Hermione did not see it that way. How was she going to account for her absences? How was she going to have time to eat and sleep? The time turner was only to be used for coursework, so sleep would become a thing of the past, as would regular meals.

She further found the Ministry’s insistence on total secrecy to be telling. If this was a normal thing, why did she have to keep silent about what she was doing? Why was she even forbidden from telling her parents or her friends or the twins? Why was she bade to use the time turner in secrecy, if not so that she could give the Ministry some power over her later? 

She strongly suspected Percy had used one, and look at him. Hermione found his projection troubling. For some reason, he was totally set on going to work for the Ministry, even though she knew he had rejected offers from Wizarding Universities in Europe and in Canada that would have set him up for political life in really amazing ways. It seemed highly suspicious to Hermione. 

“Well…” Hermione replied, totally unwilling to give voice to her suppositions, “What if I asked a Professor to oversee the self-study modules to make sure I am completing them as required? This person could oversee my general progress, and facilitate—”

“Arranging to pop in on a professor is very challenging, Miss Granger.” Her transfiguration professor noted, “We do, unlike many students believe, have lives and interests of our own, and do not live in the classroom just waiting for our next pupils to arrive. Which teacher do you propose to ask?”

“I’d thought of Professor Lupin.” Hermione allowed, “He’s new, of course, but he hasn’t any Head of House responsibilities, and he isn’t overseeing any clubs. I feel certain he would agree.” 

McGonagall looked resigned as she tucked away the time turner, but affirmed that she would present the idea to Professor Lupin. Hermione agreed that if he didn’t agree, she would use the time turner before the end of the first week of classes. That way, she would have enough time to catch up and no one would be penalized for looking for a different avenue. 

 Hermione knew she was uncertain, but Hermione knew Remus would agree. If the twins were pressed, they could claim extra classes for some reason. Hermione considered her victory all but certain. 

After all, she had just gotten them all a perfect cover story for their frequent meetings.

* * *

Hermione received a sly smile from Remus at lunch across the Hall, and she knew all would be well. Hermione tucked into her lunch, satisfied with herself. Feeling a little mischievous, she pushed threads of that triumphant and satisfied feeling down the bond. Towards the other end of the table, two heads swiveled in her direction.

Hermione felt their eyes on her, and read the questions that flared through the bond. Gently, she felt something shift inside of her as she, for the first time, let them both see the world through her eyes. Across from her, Harry and Ron were going on about Quidditch. 

Hermione felt George’s laughter and Fred’s mirth. From George, she was given an image of some man on a broom. She had no idea who it was. She didn’t follow the sport at all. Dually, she saw two images converge, creating a bird, a magpie. 

Hermione grinned, and cut into the conversation. “Actually, you’re both wrong.” Hermione asserted, “The Magpies are going to win. They’ve that…” Hermione frantically demanded information, and received a snitch in return, “…Seeker. They’ll put them in rotation this year, you’ll see.” 

Ron and Harry were gobsmacked. Evidently, she had formed a cogent opinion they’d overlooked. Harry swallowed his food, “Since when do you follow the Magpies, Hermione?”

“And how do you know about their new seeker?” Ron demanded, looking to Harry with raised eyebrows. 

“I do spend time with Fred and George, you know.” Hermione demurred, “They told me. Just now.” 

“They’re all the way down there!” Ron scoffed. 

“Good guess, ‘Mione.” Harry praised her, “If you want to learn more about Quidditch, I’ve some books you could borrow.”

“No thanks.” Hermione smiled, “I’ve other ways of getting my information.” 

After they opened the connection, the information exchange highway in their minds grew stronger. It began with jokes, because she was bonded to the twins. They would press her for answers in class, and sometimes she’d help them if they weren’t being graded.

She let them into her world, and they did the same with her. She felt the love they felt for Lee, and the fun they had in classes together. It was like being there with them, even if wasn’t something they could sustain for longer than a moment or two. 

Hermione tried to do the same. She let them see the world through her eyes. She let them see some of her classes, showed them the study modules she was doing, and let them in in ways that she had never expected to do.

She felt certain that their skills were growing, and she took some measure of pride in the way their communication and awareness of one another grew as their mental connections seemed more stable and ongoing. 

Over the next weeks as they began to work on other skills, she pushed boundaries in little ways. She let them feel the sensation of hot water running down her body and into the drain, let them see the clouded tiles in the shower stall, and let the sensation and scent of her lemon shampoo fill their senses. She let the feeling of her her heavy, dense, hair falling over her body in waves commingle along with images of soap covered hands as she scrubbed her scalp.

She let them feel the laughter welling up inside her when she got very hotly annoyed impressions that they were playing quidditch. Hermione sent back a feeling of apology, with the image of her rolling her shoulders, soap falling down in great bubbly puffs. She let the connection close then, because she really did need to condition her hair. 

Later that day, Harry had been rolling with the laughter because in unison, both Fred and George had dropped their bats and nearly gotten hit during practice. Wood was spitting splinters angry, and the twins hadn’t had a good explanation. They'd nearly gotten benched. 

Hermione had only smirked and asked Harry why on earth that had happened, feeling pride in her deviousness and a general appreciation of her pranking skills float down the bond. She patted her clean and dried curls, and went back to reading her book. 

* * *

A note with easily identifiable handwriting came via a school owl. It read: 

_Seventh Floor Corridor. 7. Walk past the left side of the corridor three times, thinking, ‘I need a place to train.’ until a door appears. When you see the door, well, you know what to do._

That night, Hermione was introduced, along with the twins, to the Room of Requirement. It was not the map for very good reason. James, Sirius, and Remus had not wanted anyone to find their most secret hangout. After all, every prankster had their secrets. 

No longer would they be training in an empty classroom. 

The environment she found was rather unlike what she had expected. She had expected a classroom. Instead, she found herself entering what was very clearly a mediation room. Remus was sitting crosslegged on a giant pillow. 

Fred snickered. “What’s this, Remus?”

“Are we going to fight Voldemort with pillows?” George asked, whacking his brother with a nearby fluffy pillow. George whacked him upside the head. Tonight was the night Remus had warned them that they’d be moving past theory into practice. 

Hermione sighed. She hated mediation. Her father was something of a yogi, and she had been signed up for kids classes at various points in her childhood when her parents felt she was stressed. Unfortunately, it just made her stress out more to the point that even looking at a yoga mat gave her hives. “I can’t do this.” Hermione blurted, “I don’t meditate.”

Remus blinked, and popped a chocolate galleon into his mouth. He simply replied, “You do now.” 

“But how is this supposed—-” George began, looking at them both with confusion on his face. 

Never one to embrace tact, Fred bluntly asked,“To help us, at all?”

“Find the power inside yourself you must.” Remus intoned, “Or fail you shall.”

Hermione snickered, “Great. Yoda jokes.” She rolled her eyes. “Very funny, Remus.” 

“Yoda who?” Fred asked, looking at Hermione quizzically. 

George continued, “Was he a wizard? Why did he talk like that?” 

“It’s a muggle film.” Hermione told them, “Remind me when we go home for holiday, and I’ll get my Dad to talk about  _Star Wars_ , okay? He's a huge fan.”

They agreed, as Hermione lowered herself to the floor and divested herself of her shoes. The floor was not stone, but was rather polished wood dotted with pillows large and small. She wasn’t exactly keen on the idea, but was swayed to give it a try by the way Remus explained its value. 

“You must be able to visualize your aura and your magical intentions. Before we can run, we have to walk, and clearing your mind is step one of that process.” Remus waved his wand, and the lights lowered. “We’ll start small tonight. 5 increments of 5 minutes. Twice.” 

Hermione fought with her mind. Hermione hated it. She hated it. Quieting her mind wasn’t the easiest thing, not and to focus on her own breathing was to allow herself to analyze her breathing.

George took to it slightly more naturally than Fred, but even he was soon able to find a comfortable space within his mind. Hermione found herself feeling every second pass her by. 

When Hermione could no longer pretend to keep her eyes closed, she let them open and let her frustration well. She let her gaze drop to her lap, and was relieved to find that the time for the segment was almost over. 

Naturally, when it was, Remus was prodding her with ease and no concept of personal boundaries, “Hermione, I noticed that you seem to be having some trouble. Do you want to talk about it?”

Hermione simply said, “I’m not good at it.”

“And you don’t do things you aren’t naturally good at, is that it?” Remus suggested gently, “You have a lot of thoughts. Why don’t you focus on them?”

“Because you’re supposed to accept them and let them float by, and I grab onto them.” Hermione admitted with some defense of self, digging her toes into the rug as she unfolded herself. “I was always the only child in the class to come out more hyper and wound up than I had been upon entering.” 

“Ah.” Remus replied, noncommittally. “Well, if letting your thoughts float by doesn’t work, how about picturing something?” 

Hermione agreed to try visualizations since picturing flying seemed to work well enough for Fred. George said he could simply clear his mind, and was happy to just be in the moment, the stupid wanker. She first visualized her room at home, but found that she was projecting the images to the twins without conscious decisions simply by the focus and intention of her attempts.

Remus said she was forcing it, so she tried again, more organically, and imagined herself walking through the Forbidden Forrest with Harry and Ron. That too, fizzled simply because she kept correcting her visualizations for accuracy. 

By the end of the night, she had come to a conclusion. The only meditative state she had ever experienced, truly given herself over to, was that single time in Egypt. It had been almost a month since that day, and Hermione realized that she was holding too tightly onto reality. By the end of the week, she was a knot of stress. 

It had to be all of the practice Remus insisted upon, which Hermione considered skipping but didn’t, knowing that it would only get harder if she didn’t tackle this now. Hermione fit it in between classes and between her growing pile of self-paced work. Her roommates and friends thought she was mad for doing extra coursework, but at least she didn’t have to lie about most of it. 

* * *

It was nearing curfew when she began to pack up her bag. Curfew was extended during Christmas break, but it still existed. On her way out of the library, she realized that she had been there far later than typical. Rather than it being curfew as she assumed, the bell was now chiming an hour later. 

Hermione kept her head down, ready and able to explain that Madam Pince had not done her job and announced curfew. She was heading through the halls close to the Tower when she heard a voice drawl, “Well, look at this, Forge, Granger’s breaking curfew.”

“Out having fun without us, huh?” Gred joined in their favorite pastime, that was, teasing her and making her blush. It seemed to be a sport in their minds. 

Hermione shook her head. “Not unless you count potions essays as fun.” 

They wrinkled their noses in tandem. Even with OWLs approaching, they had done little to after their ways of being. Hermione was so stressed out by trying not to be stressed that she sighed. She saw her boys exchange a look over her head, and waited for whatever it was that they wanted to bring up. 

She didn’t have to wait long. Evidently, it was Fred who had drawn the short straw. “Hermione, we don’t want to stress you out more, which is why we haven’t said anything, and I promise you we’re not trying to add to whatever you’re working through, but we really do need to talk.”

“And since our normally loquacious and forthright Granger has, in stark contrast to her normal habits, backed away from an issue head on, we find ourselves having to do it.” George admitted, “Really, we’d rather hide behind your skirts.” 

“George likes to look at your legs, you see. Very good view from the back.” Fred added, “Personally, I’d rather stick behind you so I don’t lose you in the crowds, but we do tolerate his foibles, don’t we?”

“You’re awful.” Hermione replied as the Fat Lady woke to admit them. Once they were inside the deserted common room, Hermione declared, “Don’t flirt with me when you’re both bringing a relational issue to my attention.” 

“But see, in flirting with you, we’re solving said relational issue.” George replied, “Handy that, isn’t it?”

“Cards on the table, gentlemen.” Hermione asserted, spinning to face them in front of the wall next to the base of the stairs to the girl’s dorms. “Or I’ll try to figure it out in divination tomorrow, and you know what a mess that’ll be.”

Fred’s grin was almost breathtaking. Almost. She regained her breath after the barest second, so it didn’t count. “Threats, Kitten?”

“Oh, no…” George mused, stepping closer. “I think that was an ultimatum.” 

“There’s some room for negotiation, surely, which would make that a threat.” Fred asserted, “Not to mention the harm Trelawney would unleash upon us.” 

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. You know what you want, don’t you, Hermione?” George mused, stepping forward until they were shrouded by the curve of the staircase and the wall. The light was shadows back here, but it was private, Hermione thought distantly, “You know, and you’re not going to stop until you get it. You really haven’t time for threats, have you?” 

Hermione swallowed. She exhaled. 

“There is that.” Fred agreed, his eyes darkening in intensity, “And you know what that old bat in the belfry would say, don’t you? There’s no question, is there?”

“Even she couldn’t mess that up.” George’s tone was that same intense calm, like the eye of a storm. “She’d tell you that you’re ours, as completely and totally as we’re yours.”

Hermione felt her fingers crackle with magic, felt the light inside of herself flare brightly with truth and want and need and love and joy. She saw the truth in their eyes, and felt in triple time in her soul. There were not words that could change it, or improve it. 

“And that’s the part that’s hurting, Kitten.” Fred slid his palm down her arm, slowly and intently. Hermione felt her legs turn to jelly when he said, “We’re yours, and when you hurt, we hurt.”

“And you haven’t even let us try to help you.” George continued, gently tucking a stray curl behind her ear. The knees that Fred’s touch had weakened shook outright. “It’s as though you don’t know how much we feel for you, or that you don’t trust our bond.”

Hermione bristled, a rage and indignation so bright that it only seemed to highlight the slow boil and burn of her continual desire, “How can you say—-”

“Because, Kitten, you haven’t let yourself go, not even a little bit.” Fred continued, “And we’re sort of divided on the reason.”

“We’ve pretty much confirmed you don’t like meditation because it requires you to let go inside of that breathtakingly beautiful mind of yours.” George allowed, “But we can’t decide if you won’t because you really liked your headspace, or not, or if it’s because you don’t trust us to be there if you let go just a tiny little bit.”

“I don’t…” Hermione licked her lips. She wanted nothing more to than to be honest. “I don’t like desperately wanting something I can’t have.”

“So, we’re right.” Fred summarized, “You liked letting go of your thoughts. You just need help figuring out how to get there, is that it? And you didn’t want to ask?”

Hermione nodded. She couldn’t bridge the gap on her own, without using their bond. She thought that maybe one day she would be able to do it without the bond like they could do, but she couldn’t. 

“See, I’m a little hurt, personally.” George allowed, his gaze intense, “All you ever have to do is snap your fingers, Hermione. That’s it.”

“But there’s nothing we can do if you don’t ask.” Fred told her gently. “Can’t read your mind, Kitten. You have to tell us what you want.”

“See, I think the thing is, you’re afraid to use the bond.” George posited, “It’s our bond that makes us more than who were alone. It’s what makes us transcendent. You do that, Kitten. You’re our soul.” 

Fred continued, as though she wasn’t a gasping mess in their arms, as though she wasn’t leaning against the wall, desperately wanting to close the mere fractions of inches between them, as though her heart hadn’t just stopped, as though they hadn’t felt it skip a beat. “Meditation isn’t about clearing your mind and isolating your thoughts and your self. For me and Fred, at least, it’s a bit like falling into the bond and finding ourselves within it, finding and resting in that unity.” 

Fred’s hands hadn’t left her arms, “We can do it, but it’s no good without you there with us.”

Oh God. She was beyond cultural context. Merlin didn’t exist here. It was just her and her boys, and their hands were warm and gentle on her body, and there was visible magic dancing just out of her reach. Hermione shuddered, letting her eyes fall closed. 

George’s words were her undoing. “So, if you need help finding your way there, let us help you, Kitten.”

They used the bond. They used the bond. Hermione’s fingertips crackled with energy. They hadn’t been shutting each other out and finding their own centers. They’d been centering together, together at the core of their bond.

It wasn't a float. It was transcendent unity. Well, almost.  

“Please.” Hermione’s gaze was serious as her voice tripped. “Please.”

* * *

That night, Hermione was so relaxed she fell asleep in Fred’s bed, enlarged to leave her room in the middle, with Fred and George around her. In the middle of the night, she woke up to find herself all but cuddled to death, Crooks on her pillow in the middle.

Hermione sighed following the spark of the bond back into a restful sleep, and knew that she had found her centering moment for guided meditation. 

Three days later when Lupin Lessons resumed, Hermione surprised Remus with her newfound aptitude for meditative trance. When she guided herself out of it, she found Remus staring at her. “How?”

“Well…” Hermione replied, “You told us to find the power within ourselves. Our power principally comes from the bond, and our relationships within it. That’s what’s makes a triad and not a trio. Follow the bond, find the power.” 

“Gold star, Miss Granger.” Remus replied, prompting both young men to ask her what a gold star was, given that stars were gaseous masses, and were not gold at all. When she told them what it meant, they asked if they got stars too. 

Hermione held her piece. She was in too good of a post-float mood to bring up her frustrations over the lack of kissing in their lives.

During their practice sessions that had become little more than group meditation, there hadn’t been time to talk, only to feel, and she wasn’t going to introduce yet more change into their dynamics without sensible discussion. Hermione let it go. She was getting the hang of this meditation thing. Maybe in two or three decades, she’d be able to manage actually feeling zen. 

 

* * *

After that, school proceeded with some speed. Hermione found herself relatively busy, between her extra schoolwork, Lupin Lessons, and her regular course obligations. The day of the boggart in DADA slid upon them in February, just before a Hogsmeade trip that was consuming  

Lavender and Parvati. Hermione was taken by surprise when Remus wheeled the cupboard into the room. Hermione glanced at him with alarm in her eyes. 

He nodded gently. He would not out her. She knew it. After class, he called her name, “Miss Granger!” 

Ron looked worried, “Maybe you did get nine points out of ten or something, Hermione.” He gestured to Harry, “D’you want us to wait in case it’s bad news?”

“Honestly!” She faked a smile, “Ever since you’ve started that class, it’s doom and gloom everywhere, isn’t it? I’m fine.” 

They left before Remus spoke to her. “You need to do the boggart, Hermione. But like Harry, I thought I’d give you the chance to do it privately. Would you care to give it a try?”

Hermione chanted the spell in her head as Lupin pulled the cupboard open. Instantly, Hermione knew without a shred of doubt that her worst fear would always be. There was no boogey man in her closet, just a smiling man who looked at her with confusion in his eyes before turning to his twin. 

The twin she knew in her soul to be Fred looked from her to his brother, and asked, “Fred, do we know her?”

“No, George, we don’t.” He replied. Finally, a thin veil of confusion crossed the twin she knew in her soul to be George face, “Who are you? If you’ve got a complaint about our products, don’t tell us.”

Hermione whispered, “You’re both Riddikulus!” She shouted, “Riddikulus!” 

Now the boggart twins were angry, wondering who she was and calling each other by the wrong names with glee, taunting her, enjoying her distress. Hermione had to find some way to make this funny. 

She felt her magic surging. She felt worry along the bond, all but heard their questions. Hermione showed her boys the closet, without showing them her boggart, and they seemed to understand. 

How could she make a Fred and George who were not themselves and who didn’t know her funny? The idea that she couldn’t make them see the bond, feel it, was horrifying. To have them there and not know her, not know their unity, would be worse than death. To see them not knowing each other was so horrifying that there weren’t words to describe the horror in her soul. 

Hermione closed her eyes. She felt the bond thrum with love and peace and joy.

Behind her eyes, she saw the Potions classroom, saw the flame burning brightly, saw her George chopping something, and then saw her Fred drop something carefully in the cauldron with a sly look at George. The whole thing erupted with glitter and lights. Hermione saw Snape’s back freeze through Fred’s eyes, and felt him exchange a high five with George. 

They’d brought Snape down upon themselves to make her laugh. Those, Hermione let her eyes open, were her boys. These things in front of her were puffs of smoke embodying her worst fears. Hermione tilted her head, and asked, interrupting them, “I’m sorry, but who are you? You don’t look like the best pranksters in Hogwarts to me, not at all.” 

And then, holding onto her joy and her truth, she watched as Snape hollered and shook glitter out of his hair rooms away, shouting “Riddikulus!” as she saw the twins burst into laughter when Snape assigned them detention. 

Remus patted her shoulder. “Personally, I think unfunny Weasley Twins would be the harbingers of the apocalypse.” He handed her a chocolate bar, as he had everyone else, and sent her on her way. 

When she went out into the corridor, she found Harry waiting for her, Ron having gone on with Dean and Seamus to lunch. “So, what was your boggart?”

Hermione tore into her chocolate, “Professor McGonagall said my marks were slipping.” 

“Well, that’ll never happen.” Harry encouraged her.

“No.” Hermione agreed, talking about something else entirely, “You’re right. It’s impossible.”

Harry chuckled.  

 

* * *

For a man who was so enthusiastic about wanting the post, according to the grapevine that was, he taught with the same negativity and sourness. Hermione had begun to think that Snape was Snape no matter his subject matter. It was a pity really, that such a bright mind was shrouded in darkness. 

Hermione was about ready to throw the book across the library, on a cold early spring night. The text read like some sort of alarmist tripe, in sweeping generalities. Her blood boiled. There was no way that this was a nuanced portrait of werewolves.

Remus had done his best, in this year dealing so deeply with creatures and beings, to present a nuanced view of each population. They’d met leprechauns, who through Remus’s connections had come to to talk to their classes. Despite common perceptions, they didn’t all like green, or gold, or all have red hair and chase rainbows. The leprechaun they had met had a very successful ironworks, and far from being a solitary figure, he had three children, a wife, and a mother-in-law. She, according to his stories, was quite a bossy old cow. 

In another lesson, they had been learning about the Goblin races, and had gone to Gringott’s, and taken a tour. They had tea with a cultural liaison and Remus had lectured on Goblin culture. The guide had even translated some of the lesson into Gobbledygook. In this sense, they had begun to make real inroads into understanding why the Goblins seemed in the modern dominant wizarding viewpoint so standoffish in the bank, and had done their part to learn more culturally aware ways of being and thinking. 

Remus was a good teacher, and after having him as an example, Hermione was not contented with the sources in the library. Like so much else in the collection, they were old and stagnant and written by old Pureblooded wizards. In Alexandria, there had been such a diversity that Hermione found the lack thereof here rather telling. 

Resolved to actually do the work that Remus would expect, rather than spitting out textbook answers, Hermione set aside the book that described werewolves as unfeeling and insensitive beasts with no higher brain power. She resolved to seek out other narratives, nuanced narratives that did the being she was studying justice. 

Hermione went back to the Magical Creatures section and found a very elementary book entitled _Basic Backgrounds of Dark Creatures_ by Fergus Wypert. She thumbed to the appropriate section and found that even that this basic fact list was loaded with broad stroke assumptions.

Surely, not every werewolf had curving and yellowing nails and uni-brows. There had to be one or two out there who valued manicures and waxing, after all. They couldn’t all  have low set ears and curving backs. If they had been bitten later in life, why should their human ears and posture change? 

Hermione shoved the book back on the shelf. She did the only thing she could possibly think of, and returned to the table to collect her things. For the first time in her life, there was nothing in the library that could answer her questions. Striding down the halls, she sought out Percy. He was, of course, sitting in the corner of the Tower with Penelope Clearwater. 

She made short work of persuading him in the name of knowledge to let her into the Prefect’s Lounge. Penelope was very helpful, and seemed to have Percy twisted around her little finger. It was rather nice to see, all told. One he let her into the Lounge, she sank to her knees in front of the fireplace. 

She got Sirius at his office, luckily. He was packing up to leave early, but he was able to take her call. “What can I do for you, Hermione?” Sirius asked, at once willing to assist her. 

Hermione explained. “Well, Professor Snape assigned an essay about werewolves in DADA, and I can’t find a single source.” Hermione came to her point, “I was thinking you might know a werewolf I could interview.” 

“Hermione.” Sirius snapped, “I really don’t have time for this right now. Sniv-“ He broke off, “Snape’s being an ass. I am sure his lecture was enough. Just write the paper, and then burn it like the pack of lies it is.” 

“Of course.” Hermione shifted, ready to pull her head from the fireplace and have a good cry. “I suppose I’ll see you at Hols.” 

Sirius sighed. “Hermione, wait.” 

Hermione was quite certain of her opinions, and she didn’t need his reluctant assistance. “I’m not in the habit of forcing people to help me. I can manage to find accurate sources, sources that don’t describe a whole population as ‘bloodthirsty, base, monsters’ without your help, thank you.”

Sirius’s isolated face colored. “Geez, kid, drive the knife in, why don’t you?” He grinned, “It’s a full moon. We’re all entitled to be a little moon crazy, huh?”

“That’s a real thing, then?” Hermione asked. 

“Actually, it’s more like the week before the actual moon change. Not for little ears, though, so forget that bit, would you?” He grinned, and Hermione gathered that ‘moon crazy’ was, as some books had noted, a reference to more sexual behaviors on the part of a wolf. If a woman’s cycle could be tied to the moon, and her hormones with it, why not a werewolf’s own biochemistry and hormones? 

Sirius smirked, “Actually, I bet Snape would love an essay detailing the mating habits of werewolves.”

“Shut up.” Hermione returned, glad to be back on even footing with Sirius, “You’ll owl me books?” 

* * *

The requisite books arrived the same day as word went round that there would be another game of night quidditch. Hermione resolved to go. Secretly, she loved night quidditch. It was the best of them, the full expression of house unity, and a bunch of people just being.

The magical energy was uplifting, and Hermione got her best reading done there, in the stands, as she cheered and whooped for the little kids playing quidditch with their idols, and the magical versions of other games on broomstick. 

Hermione herself had suggested several of the rules that occasionally governed the games. Variety was only logical, after all. They had used to play in pajamas, but that had been banned by collective sentiment after somebody had slipped out of their bottoms, mooned the entire school, and gotten hurt. So, now they wore actual clothing. 

Hermione gathered her books, and set down the stairs, padding after the other girls. They didn’t really need to be quiet, even Percy the Prefect was going, and the portraits sent up a signal if a teacher was coming, but it was all part of the fun. Hermione had her coat slung over her arm. 

Amid the  hushed loudness of a bustling common room, she heard a voice to the left. “So, is there a two or a four on the back of that jersey?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Hermione quipped, sliding on her coat before he had a chance to see, or to flag over anyone else. Even as George approached, she wrinkled her nose, and added, “I’m still not telling.”

“Oh, just take our fun and shut it down.” Fred asserted, his good humor in tact, “Look at her, George. Bold as brass, that one.”

“We will eventually figure it out, you know.” George warned her. “You’re sure you don’t rotate biweekly?”

“You go on and try to keep guessing if it makes you happy.” Hermione patted his hand gently. It never hurt to have their little dreams. After all, the jersey she wore did say Weasley on the back, but she had never told the twins which Weasley it was, nor would she ever reveal her very logical system. It was a good way to show school spirit, and keep her boys on their toes. “You know I’d do just about anything to make you both happy.”

“Then tell us.” They urged. She said she’d do anything to make them happy, and they asked about her jersey system. Lovely. Just lovely. 

“We want to know your system because—” Gred urged.

“—We know you have one.” Forge insisted. 

“Why should I encourage you?” Hermione asked, “You have quite enough to think about, such as your upcoming OWLs.” 

George shrugged. “We’d rather just let you become Minister for Magic and let us be men of leisure attending to your every whim and playing quidditich with the other ladies who lunch.”

Fred agreed. “We plan to retire from merrymaking upon your rise to power, see.” He winked at her, “You’re not the only one with plans for greatness, Kitten.”

“Somebody might hear you spewing that pack of lies, and then where will you both be?” They were both as equally talented as she was, it was simply that their interests led them to be more nonconventional. Yet, their ambitions nearly matched her own drive.

Hermione tugged on her gloves, seeing that Ginny had come down. It was nice to have a best friend who understood better than anyone how frustrating the twins could be, although not in the same way. Hermione bore that particular cross alone. 

“I don’t know.” Fred admitted, cheerfully. 

George added just as brightly, with a false leer, “But we have definite ideas about where you’ll be.”

Hermione huffed and stopped off, before they saw her grin and the game was up. 

* * *

Lee’s midnight commentaries were quite unrestrained. After all, McGonagall wasn’t there to mind him. “—and there goes Weasley, can’t tell which one and Granger’s buried in her books, as per usual, so—and there goes Potter in his oven mitts!”

A whistle blew, and everyone hopped off their brooms, as Lee narrated, “You put the left one in you take the left one out, you put the left one in and you shake it all about. You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself about and…” Lee dropped the tune in his voice to holler,  “You get back on those brooms and play illegal quidditch, you barmy fuckers.” 

He censored himself as students scrambled to their brooms, “Sorry firsties, don’t go home and tell your mummies that I taught you to curse. Aw, who the hell am I kidding?” He turned back to the game, “And they’re off!”

He narrated the game a bit and the switched back, “As I was saying, firsties, you lot are dirty minded. Not, of course, as dirty minded as my roommates, but that takes practice and incentive. Why just the other day—” His attention was snapped back to the game, “What a move from Johnson! And props to Goldstein! What a game. Holy shit, look at that!”

Hermione turned back to her book. It was a miracle to have reliable sources in her hands. She owed Sirius a lot. She looked down at her parchment and reviewed her notes, knowing that a final draft would be due next class. 

Werewolves often had frequent absences from school or work around the full moons. They were often denied work opportunities and were isolated from the larger communities. They had medical concerns, and often had preferences for certain comfort foods. They, in adulthood, had a very controlled temper and masterful control of their emotions and reactions. 

Something about these factors rang a bell in her mind. Hermione made a star on her notes, in order to consider the matter later. She was distracted. A bunch of girls across the houses were sitting around her playing various games and talking about the same man, as they had been doing for weeks now.

Usually, Hermione found it best to smile vacantly and nod where appropriate. They were all gushing over the not-so new DADA professor was, a hot topic around school. Considering how well she knew Remus and his family and how much he had come to know about her and the twins over the last few months, these conversations made her a little uncomfortable.

She wasn’t about to tell them that, last week, Remus had gotten in their faces about their lack of magical control. They were preparing for war, he'd said, war unlike anything they could conceptualize, and they would be the first line of defense. His patience had been thin as he'd scared them into facing the truth. 

Hannah Abbott was knitting. “My mother is friends with Sirius Black’s aunt, and she said that at home, Professor Lupin is a very charming man. She said that her friend always invites him to dinner parties, and that he and Sirius Black are the Weasley twins of their generation.”

“Merlin, I hope not.” Hermione muttered, sifting through her bag for another book. She knew she was on to something here. “Can you imagine?”

Luna giggled. “Hermione spends part of her summers with them, you know.” 

“Well, not really.” Hermione hedged, “It’s tough enough for Harry to have his Dad working at school. I try not to talk about their home life.” 

“You’re so mature, Hermione.” Susan Bones praised her. “We should take your example.”

“We won’t, though.” Daphne Greengrass noted to the laughter of their peers, “Because that wouldn’t be any fun.” 

Hermione was glad that screaming overtook them, the game over as everyone converged on the pitch. Now that the game was over, they played other games. Lately, a few students had created a volleyball net. This week it looked like people were raising netball hoops and affixing them to the goals. 

Hermione stuck her book back in her bag, and pushed to her feet. It was close to three in the morning, and she had a full load for tomorrow. She was always the first to turn in, out of her loose circle. If anything, they valued traditions. 

She waved goodbye to her seat companions, and moved towards the steps just as a bunch of brooms converged upon her, “Sure you don’t want to play, ‘Mione?” Harry asked, hanging upside down off of his broom, glasses in his hand as his hair hung upside down. He needed a haircut. 

His male best friend rolled his eyes at his antics, and asked, “Do you have any snacks in that bag?” 

Hermione tossed him a bag of muggle crisps. He checked the flavor, muttered, “Muggle food is so weird.” He stuffed a handful in his mouth, and added, “Weird but good.”

Ginny landed with grace next to Hermione. “We shouldn’t force Hermione to enjoy the things we enjoy. After all, nobody would cheer for you, Ron, if she didn’t stay in the stands.”

Ron colored and spoke around his food, “Piss off, Ginerva.” 

Ginny flipped her hair, “You’re just jealous of my quidditch skills.” 

Hermione thought that that was probably the case. Ginny was nothing short of amazing. 

She extricated herself from the group, and headed back to the castle, walking slowly along the paths, passing various couples and groups along the way. Hermione looked up at the moon, singing an old song her mother had taught her from childhood. “I see the moon and the moon sees me, under the leaves of the tall oak…”

Hermione trailed off as she had a thunderbolt of inspiration. 

She looked down at her bag. 

Moon. How odd to have paper due about werewolves when Remus was taken ill again, this time also around the full moon. 

_Moony. Snape’s hints._

Her DADA professor, her best friend’s dad, was a werewolf. 

Suddenly, so much made sense. So much made sense. Remus not having many friends because his friends had died or gone to jail, not having many friends because he felt he could no longer trust people, especially with his secret. This explained the scars he kept hidden, but that they had seen during various periods of Lupin lessons. This explained his uncommon strength when he worked with them during the same lessons.

This even explained his love of chocolate. 

They loved it for the same reason. Like a Focus in a triad, a werewolf experienced various hormonal changes during their shift. As with the Float, or a Drop, a werewolf needed the oxytocin. It was their shared love of chocolate that sealed the truth into Hermione’s mind, made her wonder how she had missed it.

In retrospect, Sirius taunting his childhood enemy with details of his spouse’s sexual habits seemed the sort of thing he tease about doing.

It was as clear as dayight, or the waning moon above her. 

In the end, it changed nothing about Remus, and everything she thought she knew about the people around him, namely Dumbledore and Snape. 

 

* * *

Hermione paced before the fire, uncaring that none of them had gotten any sleep. They’d skipped out of the Hufflepuff sleepover because Hermione had wanted privacy to talk.

“How dare he assign that essay!” She balled up the assignment sheet, and tossed it in the fire, “How dare he be so petty! How dare he make a medical condition into something to be sussed out and mocked?”

Harry’s face was a thundercloud. “I don’t know what Snape expects to do.” 

“Well, I tell you what…” Ron chewed his food rapidly, “If we don’t do something, he will.”

“He can’t go after my parents.” Harry insisted. “I won’t let him hurt another set.” 

‘Public sentiment, Harry, against werewolves is not positive.” Hermione reminded him, “You know he lives in secret.”

“I am sorry I didn’t tell you.” Harry stressed, “You don’t know how much I wanted—-”

Hermione paused in her pacing, “I don’t blame you, Harry. It’s not my business unless Remus makes it my business.” She continued pacing, “I blame that git! The gall of the bat of the dungeons.” 

Ron and Harry looked at each other in shock. “Did she just…?”

“I did.” Hermione snapped. “I’m prepared to wait him out. One wrong move though, and…” Hermione let magic crackle on her fingertips, let her hair rise just a bit. 

“Please don’t do that.” Ron asked, “It’s scary.”

“You mean Hermione is scary.” Harry corrected. “I hope Snape watches his step.” 

* * *

Snape didn’t mind himself or his words, or so it seemed. Weeks passed, and now that Hermione knew the truth, she saw microagressions toward Remus on the part of their potion’s master everywhere. There were sly looks, and jokes, and comments to students, and jibes that had no place in a school. It was horrible.

Every moment made Hermione rage. 

Hermione focused on Snape, watching him. She took to keeping notes, and watching. Snape was a petty and as childish as she had ever seen him. It seemed as though Remus shrank back, as though he was terrified of losing a job he loved, and a job he was very good at, something Snape could never claim. 

Hermione didn’t have a way to tell him she would never, never let that happen. Hermione didn’t know where this conviction came from, only that she knew that this was the first real battle her triad was facing. Remus had prepared them for guerrilla warfare using meditation and tactical training, but he had taught them about justice and truth. She would never let him be removed from this castle, not while it stood. 

She would sooner reduce it to rubble. 

So, as Snape escalated, Hermione prepared to fight a new war. George and Fred were knee deep in OWL revisions, but one night, after Snape had made yet more Loony, Loony, Lupin comments, Hermione marched into the library and laid her plan at their feet. “Gentleman, I have come to you with a proposition you will not refuse.”

“Hermione, love…” George muttered, not looking up from his book, “We flaked for five years, pulled EE’s and O’s without trying…”

“But Mum’ll kill us if we don’t do well.” Fred finished, “So really, while we’d love nothing more than to do unspeakably wicked things to your body over this library table…”

“As much as it pains us, it’ll have to wait.” George finished, asking, “Hand me that ink, would you?” 

Hermione passed it, her face florid. “I was wondering if you wanted to play a long game to teach Snape a lesson.”

“That…” Fred looked up, his eyes bright.

“Is something we’d flunk OWLs for.” George added.

“Tell us, everything.” Fred asked. 

Hermione decided to spill everything. The twins, it seemed, already knew about his furry little secret. They’d sussed it out at eight. Arthur had taken them to task, and they had never even spoken of it amongst each other. She revealed her plan. 

“So basically…” Fred summarized their conversation in the corner of the stacks at their customary table, “If Snape attacks publicly like you think he will…”

“We hit back five times as hard, and show him just how stupid bigots truly are.” Hermione finished, “And we make the world a better place.”

George added, “And if it goes south…”

“We bail you out with pranks.” Fred finished. 

“With socially aware comedic gestures.” Hermione corrected. 

They sighed, and said in unison. “Same thing.” 

* * *

The next week, word went around Hogwarts. Nothing changed. People still went to class, and the dreamy looks towards Remus continued. Hermione had hoped the community had decided to make some change as a collective whole. 

Hermione was walking towards Hagrid’s hut with Harry and Ron when she heard the Slytherins who gave a whole house a bad name giggling like little boys over the dark creature teaching defense.

Snape, it seemed, had started the tale telling when he had revealed Remus’ medical conditions to his students because he was a petty slimeball.

“Does it count as self-defense when he casts a patrons?” Malfoy’s sidekick sniggered. 

Hermione paused, and listened to Malfoy add, “Have you ever seen something so pathetic?” He scoffed, “He’s supposed to be a teacher! We’re not his hunting ground. Probably has to prey on defenseless kids to get a meal, though.” 

Hermione had had enough. She watched Harry grip his wand, watched Ron take a step forward. Rage, cool, controlled, and violent welled in her soul. Hermione was, in this moment, totally aware of the lessons that Remus had been teaching her and the boys over the last year. He had been teaching them the true meaning of control. He had been using his painful life lessons to help them become battle ready warriors. 

Hermione turned on her heel, and converged upon Malfoy, Ron and Harry hot on her heels. They lurched to a stop when instead of pulling her wand her wand or even breathing a word, she simply and forcefully slapped Malfoy across the face. If she injected a little earth magic into the slap for a bit of an added sting and a brighter handprint across his cheek, that was her secret. 

“Don’t you dare call Remus Lupin pathetic, you foul, you evil, minuscule excuse for a wizard.” Hermione’s voice was calm and deadly. Hermione saw a flash of fear, of knowing, of something else, in Malfoy’s eyes as he scrambled back wordlessly. 

After a long second of staring him down, he forced a sneer onto his face, and slunk with his goons back into the dungeon from whence had come. Hermione felt the earth underneath her tremble slightly as she pushed gathered energy back into the earth through her firmly planted feet. 

Harry and Ron looked at her with awe and wonder on their faces. Hermione answered the questions in her mind and the questions on their face in one fell swoop, knowing the twins were still listening with their inner ears, inner ears that had been honed with help of the man she had just defended. “I just put the ferret in his place.” Hermione shrugged, “Violence speaks to base creatures like him.”

“I just put the ferret in his place, she says.” Ron muttered as they walked along, “And caused an earthquake.”

Hermione waved that off. After all, it hadn’t been a real earthquake and the shift in energetic fields had been very controlled. Hermione was proud of herself, all told. She had applied Lupin’s lessons. 

* * *

The moment the Furry Little Problem came out overtly, Hermione felt pain well up in her soul. Lupin had been publicly humiliated, his condition trotted out for everyone to hear during a lunch with the Board of Governors. Hermione could not believe what she was hearing. Remus was scrambling and retreating when he was the one who had nothing to be sorry for, or nothing he needed to defend or explain. 

Severus Snape looked darkly triumphant, clearly asking with a silkily raised eyebrow how Remus planned to extricate himself and save his job in front of the school board and the entire student body. The mess that his last transformation had been had only been made public because of Snape’s well placed comments. 

Hermione knew she had to work fast. As she considered her words, she shot to her feet. The whispers that had risen over the course of the last few minutes silenced when people started whispering her name, silencing those around them with a whispered order to watch.

_Hermione....shhh! Watch! Hermione....Granger....look, look, Granger...watch her...Granger...Hermione...Shut up, she's talking._

 

Hermione prided herself on her reputation for already being a bit of a renegade and a badass. It helped in moments like these. 

The whole school was looking at her, and Remus looked like he was going to kill her, but she approached the center of the Hall with its natural acoustics quickly, “I’m sorry, but I have a question.”

“Miss Granger always has questions.” Dumbledore chuckled to their guests. His eyes twinkled, but Hermione would never forgive him for not laying down the law in a staff meeting. Childhood fights had to end, and Dumbledore should have forced the issue long ago. “Continue, Hermione.”

Hermione encompassed the school in her glance and then greeted the visitors sitting at an enlarged high table with a slight nod. Her reputation had preceded her, of that there was no doubt. 

“Well, if I am correct, and I may not be, it seems to me that we have just been discussing, and none too kindly, protected medical information.” Hermione referenced the lycanthropy news that had just officially spread like wildfire, while those in charge, those in leadership, had sat there and done nothing to stand up and change it. Hermione swallowed her urge to rage at every person in leadership in this place, burn it to rubble, and start a new school. 

She continued, “Where I come from, you see, such medical conditions are protected from workplace harassment and what just happened would be immoral and illegal.”

She caught Malfoy Senior’s eye. He said muggle had no morality or judgement, but she knew that collectively, theirs were better than his, or those of his old housemate. He sneered. 

“You are muggleborn, my dear?” An older woman on the board asked. Hermione realized that she was a relative of Susan’s, her aunt, perhaps. She was definitely involved at the DMLE according to work robes she still wore. 

“Yes.” Hermione revealed, “And I will confess that the things I have seen lately breach not only common decency but legal statutes as well. Confidentiality is key, if we are to place trust in the Ministry and in our governmental agencies.”

Another man on the board spoke. “Werewolves, to my regret, Miss Granger, are not afforded equal protection under the law.” 

Hermione knew this, and she also knew that she was going to change it. Change didn’t always start with laws and rules. Sometimes, it started with one person standing up and speaking out, giving the others courage to follow. Sometimes, it was merely turning a mirror back on something people accepted as truth, as tradition, without deeply exploring it. 

“People with chronic illnesses are, however, provided such protections, and are welcome to any workplace accommodations that are reasonably possible.” Hermione hastened, “I’ve seen such things taking place at the Ministry.”

“Indeed.” Another woman replied, “I cannot think why…” Understanding and pain dawned on her aging face. Hermione did not look away from her. “…why…lycanthrope is not considered a chronic illness. It meets the definition that we are required to follow with other shifting beings such as full Veelas.”

Madam Promfrey commented, “They are long-term illnesses that are not curable managed by lifestyle choice and medication. Remus’s condition fits better than most. When Remus was under my care, he managed his illness well. Minerva will tell you that he has been a fantastic professor. I would be willing to oversee any treatment he’d request from me.” 

Hermione turned again to her favorite professors. “Is there some reason that he must be fired?”

“Legally, no.” Dumbledore replied, “However transformations are problematic…” 

“Professor Lupin has stood by this school for more than 20 years.” A voice called out. It was a Jones, a seventh year in Hufflepuff. Thank Merlin for the true courage of Hufflepuff House. Hermione felt something ease in her soul, knowing now that the tide had begun to turn, “When will the school stand by him? The news was around Slytherin House for weeks! Where’s their honor and dignity?”

Stomping echoed her words, reverberating the Great Hall. A host of other voices called out in agreement.

It was as though a floodgate opened. Her own house was at the front of the pack, yelling out for justice. 

Ravenclaw was largely standing on their table, having cleared the dishes with a wave of their wands. "We've known for months! It hasn't impacted our learning!" They began to call out various examples of Remus's academic excellence. 

People stood on the benches and called for Dumbledore to refuse to accept his resignation, and for the Board to investigate the breach. The whole school was screaming, and eventually they were chanting his name with gusto and emotion.

Hermione looked around the room. 

Above the din, a Slytherin sixth-year called out, "Slytherin stands with duty and honor!" 

The rest of the table drowned out those who remained silent with call and answer chants of their Latin house motto, and "Lupin!" Those on the wrong side were a notable minority. 

The school was united. Pride, joy, love, and breathless admiration flooded her soul. Hermione caught the dual grins of George and Fred, and inclined her head gently. 

Finally, Harry stood up and called out, “Why can’t he transform at home and then come back to school when he’s ready? It’s worked for all my life!” 

Cheers went up, and someone lobbed a chocolate heart at the table. Soon there were piles of chocolate everywhere around Lupin, the foil as bright as the tears in Remus’s eyes.

The whole room was soon filled with chatter and magical energy as the school gave Remus Lupin back every bit of support they had given him. 

It was a sight to behold. Everywhere she looked, there was unity of truth and purpose. Hufflepuff students were talking with Slytherin, Slytherins with Gryffindors, Gryffindors with Ravenclaws. The Patil twins were openly embracing with joy and glee as they stared with quiet pride at their man crush. Lavender could be heard exclaiming that he was so brave, and that she had predicted this outcome. 

Hermione saw that Severus was red-faced. There were people, like Draco’s father, on the Board of Governors, who looked angry and frustrated. She did not care. They would get on board with common decency or she would crush them. 

Behind her, fireworks boomed. One was in the shape of a wolf. Hermione thought that particularly clever, and smiled fondly at her boys. They had done this, begun to fight this war. Hermione knew the fight would only get harder from here on out, but thanks to Remus Lupin, she knew that they had a fighting chance to let this war mean something, truly change the world for the better. 

Let Voldemort come. Let his Death Eaters approach. Hogwarts had found the power within itself. She dared anyone to stand against it. If they did, Hermione knew that there was a trio and a triad waiting. In the meantime, though, she had chocolate to toss around with her schoolmates and a werewolf to hug. 


	6. Summer 1994

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do not read if you don't like reading M-ish things... 
> 
> There is fade to black, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A good 1/3 of this chapter is just a bunch of teenagers messing around. It advances the plot, though, it totally does. Totally. 
> 
> The Cup's next chapter. 
> 
> After 3rd Year, if I were Hermione, I would have slept for two weeks.

Hermione was so happy to be home.

School this past year had been mercilessly full of work. She’d had Lupin Lessons three or four days a week, and had an extra heavy load of classes. When she wasn’t in the classroom, she was working on the courses she chose to take via self-directed study. When she wasn’t working on independently directed study, she was watching Snape and his ilk rip into someone she loved. Naturally, there was little time left for rest. 

So, when she came home from school, instead of jumping into summer plans and socializing, she put on her Paddington Bear sleepshirt, and crawled into her bed. For the better part of a week, she slept. She rested, wandered around the house cuddling Crooky, reading The Great Betty, and eating when her parents put food in front of her. Hermione was just so very tired. 

She took a plethora of hot showers, and let her riot of curls drip dry onto Fred and George when they held her, and pressed their noses into her orange and lemon scented hair as the cat purred in their laps. It was so nice to be held. She warmed up when they tucked blankets around the three of them, and laughed uproariously at the muggle telly. They ate huge plates of leftovers and takeaway, and let Hermione pick what she wanted off of their plates. After years of eating their food in bits and bites, they had come to expect it. 

This circumstance naturally raised a great many questions about her school year, questions she avoided in letters, questions that had not come up because her Mum and Dad had not been there to see her. Her parents were concerned, though truly Hermione knew there was nothing to concern them. She was tired, the last year had been a challenge, and her body and mind were finally bouncing back. 

Hermione was sitting in the kitchen wearing a thick jumper, and a pair of soft cotton trousers. Her hair was piled up loosely on her head, and she was idly working at a crossword puzzle. A great many of the pop culture references passed her by, and she involved her Mum in sussing out popular music, scandals, and fashionable b-list celebrities that she hadn’t heard of as yet.

In a lull, Mum asked, “Are you sick, Hermione? Is there some magical ailment that Dad and I…”

“No.” Hermione assured her gently, “This isn’t a magical drain. I’m not sick. I feel just fine. This last year was hard.”

Her Mum, of course, knew about Lupin Lessons. After all, the man in question was coming over several times a week just to keep their skills up and check in with them. Mum often popped in to watch Hermione manipulate earth’s ambient magic, and the deep stores of magic beneath her feet. She couldn’t see magic, but at the level of magnitude that they were now practicing with it, she could feel it fairly well. 

“Molly told me today that you stormed out of divination.” Mum sipped her mug of coffee, and set down her surgical reports. Hermione had joined her in working on them, not to help her, but just to spend some time with her. It was nice just to watch her work. 

Hermione blushed. “It was not well done of me, I know.” Hermione thought back to that day. She had stormed out for a lot of reasons.

Even then, she had been too tired to consider dealing more pseudoscience and fluff. She was tired of that old bat calling her mundane, when she was just as magical as any of them. Sometimes it made her laugh, knowing now that she could bend the earth’s energies to her will. Most of the time, though, she took no pride in that truth. She hated to be made to feel different, and so lost at sea without the barest of facts and truth to guide her. 

Furthermore, she had hated the things it did to her bond. When she would do as she was directed by the divination professor, she either got the start of a massive headache or began to meditate. By the time she had left the class, she was very adept at working with her own magic, the bond, and tapping into earth magic. Unwittingly letting raw earth magic build up in your hands was not a good idea, not when she was working so hard to keep the bond secret.

Controlling it in such a context had taxed her at moments when she was already spread thin. Rather than out herself, she had left. 

It was also clear that Trelawney knew something. After one class, wherein she had made cryptic comments about sacred power dwelling amongst them, being at once an old friend and enemy. She had looked at Hermione and said, “The power of one is greater than that of three. Where three enter, one shall emerge.” 

Hermione had not been able to sit there and listen to such tripe. Hermione had walked out. Rather than telling her mother that she had nightmares of death, she smiled. “Can you imagine me reading palms, Mum, really?”

Mum quirked a smile, “Well, I’m proud of you for giving it a try.”

Hermione smiled in return, and went back to her crossword puzzle. After a long moment puzzling over the title of a hot 100 single, she joined her Mum in an easy conversation about all the muggle things she had missed during the year. In doing so, she was able to fill in several boxes she would never have figured out otherwise. 

* * *

Within a few days, she was well rested and back to her normal busy self.

She spent much of the early summer conducting experiments with Fred and with George. They were invested in building up their mail order business, so they worked hard to develop new products and marketing the products they’d developed over the years. There were a plethora of them, and this summer it seemed they had more orders than ever before. 

Hermione realized that they had made a tidy sum over the years. It certainly answered questions about what they did with their free time and where all her birthday and Christmas presents had come from. When pressed, they’d always shrugged, but charms for her bracelet weren’t something pocket money might have paid for even when pooled, and she’d worried. 

Hermione took over record keeping, lab notes, and orders. It was easy enough, and kept her engaged. She frequently directed her own experiments for variations on products, or developing new ones altogether. Hermione handled the owls, sending out order forms, and streamlined a process that heretofore had been haphazard at best. Before she’d stepped in, they hadn’t even had a vault, and had instead been keeping no small sum in their closet behind an old beater’s bat. 

Hermione had corrected that gross negligence and had commandeered a guest bedroom at home for a clandestine headquarters for Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes. Left to themselves, they would have kept working in their ever untidy bedroom. Luckily, though, Hermione had connections and begged a few old wooden lab tables from a friend of her Dad’s, along with basic laboratory supplies. 

She had desperately wanted her boys to understand just how much she supported their dreams, collectively and individually. A few pieces of lab equipment left over from a newly renovated university lab was nothing in the scope of what she wanted to do for and with them.

Hermione wedged a tiny desk by the window overlooking the garden, and spent many summer days there, answering letters, taking orders, and making sure they didn’t add synthetic frog spines to black pepper and blow up the entire house. 

It was, altogether, a nice way to spend the summer. Hermione read the latest issues of _Ars Alchemica_ and handled correspondence, listening to her boys work and banter. Presently, they were refining some of their issues with the Ton-Tongue Toffees they’d developed over the last year. 

Hermione heard them puttering around over a bubbling coldron as she asked, “You know, I’ve been thinking. What’s the point of really developing these fake wands?”

George was quick to give their customary reply, “Because it’s—-”

“Funny.” Fred finished, “Why else?”

“It’s only even plausible if you’re in the habit of picking up random wands.” Hermione allowed. They were quite in this habit, because they could use each other’s wands without skipping a beat. She’d once gone through a day of classes not realizing she was using Fred’s wand. “Most people can’t use any wand unless it’s theirs, so unless we can manufacture identical replicas of every wand in use…” 

Hermione let her silence speak volumes. There were limits, of course. She did, however, have an idea. 

George asked, looking over his shoulder as he chopped licorice root. “So, are you going to tell us how you plan to fix our oversight?”

“Or are you going to let us stew?” Fred countered, stirring the cauldron. 

“Would I ever?” Hermione grinned, “You make them do something funny, or something cute for kids, or…” Hermione trailed off, visions of wands that emitted flowers like a muggle magician filling her mind. Such a thing would be cute for dates, not that she’d know much about the casual dating scene that permeated Hogwarts. 

“Pranking wands!” George exclaimed, “Like ones that spit out a pair of rubber pants!”

Fred climbed aboard that idea train, “Or rubber chickens!”

George snapped his fingers. “Or beat you over the head when  you wave it.”

Hermione sighed, and turned back to the order forms. Who was she to get in the way of the creative genius of two teenage boys? She drew the line at dick jokes, though. Those and poop jokes never sold. Of that she was certain. 

* * *

The summer passed in much the same fashion. Some days were spent at her parent’s house, some days at the Burrow, and some days at Grimmauld Place. Hermione and Ginny had a lot of fun together when the others were off doing whatever it was they did, and Hermione was glad to have a best friend that was more like family than anything else.

One muggy afternoon, they were tramping through feilds in their wellies. Hermione’s naturally, were green and Gin’s were a solid blue. They tramped along the dirt tracks that led to Ottery St. Catchpole to pick up a few things at the village store before Charlie’s arrival.

Hermione loved the church there, loved that it was so very clearly a wizarding place of worship to anyone who looked properly. The juxtaposition of wizarding culture right under muggle eyes was beautiful. It gave her hope for an integrated future.

Ginny was complaining about Harry. “I keep waiting for him to see me as something other than a little sister, you know?”

“I know.” Hermione replied, “But it could be worse.”

“Yeah, how?” Ginny scoffed. 

“Try being interested in two men who don’t even look at you.” Hermione elaborated, “Try being bonded to two men and not one of them will date you, much less kiss you.” Hermione asked a question that had spun around in her brain for a while, “After all, what does that say about me?”

Ginny stopped in her tracks. She looked around, left than right. She gaped like a fish. And then she laughed so hard she doubled over and tears sprang to her eyes. When she could haul enough air into her lungs to speak, she blurted, “Oh, that’s funny! That’s—” She laughed some more. “You don’t expect me to believe—”

Hermione’s face burned. “Well, excuse me.” 

Ginny calmed, tears still gathered in the corner of her eyes. “Do you mean to tell me that Fred and George don’t spend every second behind closed doors kissing you?” 

“No!” Hermione emphasized. 

“I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, Hermione, but I know what you three are even if Ron refuses to see it.” Ginny resumed walking, leaving Hermione to tag along, “And unconsummated or not, a bond is a bond.”

“You would think that they’d want to act on what we feel.” Hermione posited, “I know what they feel, and I can’t understand why they won’t even…” 

Ginny shook her head as they walked along. She seemed rather puzzled, too.“Yeah, especially since you’re basically already married.”

“Ginny.” Hermione reached out and grabbed her arm, “What?”

“A bond is a form of marriage, Hermione. It’s recognized as such from very early on, since they form differently for each group. I mean, yeah, you still have to formalize it, but it used to be that the formalization was merely an acknowledgment of what was.” Ginny elaborated, “How do you not know this?”

“Forgive me for not reading the marriage chapters when I couldn’t even get a bloody date, Gin, okay?” Hermione blurted, “Last year was busy, okay, and before that I spent 96% of my time trying desperately not to blush anytime I thought of anything remotely sexual, alright?” 

“Hermione…” Ginny hastened, “What are you planning? I know that face. I know that expr—-”

But Hermione did not hear her best friend. She was already running through the fields, a straight shot for the Burrow. 

Ginny hastened along after her, “I should not have said that. I should not have said that.” 

* * *

 

Hermione’s chest was heaving when she crossed the threshold of the Burrow. There was a man she knew by name if not by appearance. His dragonhide boots were a dead giveaway. Molly spoke as she stumbled into the kitchen door, “Hermione, dear, Charlie’s home.”

“Yes, nice to see you, lovely to meet you, I have a lot I want to ask you, thanks for the letters, I enjoy our correspondence.” Hermione heaved a breath, “But first, I have to go commit mariticide.” 

Ginny was racing through the garden, screaming her name, and yelling, “Oh, Merlin! Hermione! Wait! Wait!” 

“I’m not familiar with the term, dear, but have fun.” Molly remarked, turning her attention back to Charlie, who winked at Hermione. 

Hermione hastened up the stairs, and went into the twins room before Ginny could follow. She bolted and warded the door. Fred greeted her casually without looking up.“Hey, Kitten.”

“Nice wellies and shorts thing you’ve got going on today.” George offered, stirring something that emitted a slightly spicy scent. Hermione let it fill her lungs. 

Fred looked at her, then. “It’s the pigtails that make the outfit, really.” 

“I should kill you both, slowly and carefully.” Hermione observed, leaning against the door, spinning her wand. “I should kill you both.”

George measured the weight of kava kava. lemongrass, and what looked from here like ground ginger. “Percy drank your Irn Bru, so just go take it up with him.” 

“Really, blaming us for such a dastardly deed!” Fred turned back to his brew, “I never.”

Hermione knew in this moment that unless things changed, she’d never be happy.

She was no longer happy to be here with them like this, and not be free to ask if she might kiss the shell of George’s ear when he bent to measure out grams of this or that, or to press her lips softly to Fred’s over the steam of a simmering cauldron, not to arouse passion in either of them, but just dwell in the fullness of what they had in the moment. 

Hermione didn’t believe Ginny that she was married. That was total lore. It had to be. She had begun to bond at eleven, for Merlin’s sake, and child marriage was illegal. However, she did not doubt that the things she had assumed to be holding her boys back, tradition and culture, were things that were in fact support for what they wanted. She wasn’t talking about marriage and polywog carriages, at least not now. All she wanted, all she needed, was not to cut off a very vibrant part of their bond.

She just wanted it to develop however it developed. She wanted to see where things led.

Hermione set her wand on the dresser by the door, not moving from her spot. “For the love of Merlin, somebody flip a galleon, somebody call it, and somebody start kissing me already.” 

George set the knife he’d been using, and looked to her. “Is that a muggle kissing ritual?”

Fred put a timer on the potion, and offered. “Seems rather strange if you ask me.” 

George wiped his hands on his jeans, and looked at Hermione, “Especially since we don’t know any somebodies.”

Hermione hid a smile. Leave it to them to tease her, now, when they were crossing the room. Hopefully they had a plan. 

“And how would a muggle get a galleon?” Fred asked, crossing the room. “Maybe they use a pound or something.”

Hermione tried not to laugh, “Would you two like to be alone?”

“We’d really rather kiss you.” George admitted,  “You know, now that you’re asking.”

Fred added, “We knew you would.”

Hermione hoped there had not been a bet placed on the timing of this venture, but knowing her boys she bet there had been just such a bet between them. Hermione set aside the notion that she had been asking them to ask for ages. It seemed that she was going to have to be the one to start things off for a while, and she was okay with opening the conversation up. Would that she had done it ages ago. 

Hermione looked between them. “Please tell me you didn’t literally do a coin toss to see who would go first.”

“We’ll tell you our secrets, when you tell us your jersey system.”  George tilted his head towards Fred, and Hermione had her answer. 

Hermione knew that would never happen, and so did they. 

Fred chuckled, and Hermione, emboldened, pushed up on her toes to catch the flavor of his laughter, and lost every bit of air in her lungs when their lips met. Hermione felt her knees go weak. Fred’s kisses made her feel like her mind was on fire,  like her body was ready to go up in flames, like she’d die if he didn’t kiss her more deeply. 

She was suddenly very aware of every atom in her body screaming out for more of the same and yet more still. She was keenly aware of how firmly she was pressed against Fred. It was like spiraling into an inferno and being doused with cold water when Fred pulled back, gently pressed a kiss to the corner of her eye, the corner of her mouth, and let her go. 

Hermione sucked in a ragged breath, and turned slightly. George’s eyes were glittering. Something Hermione had never considered before clicked into place in her mind. Before she could fully mentally articulate what she knew now, George was kissing her.

His kiss soothed her, made her feel like she had been pulled down by an undertow, until the heat pooling in her belly spread like a tidal wave. She was literally drowning in heat, tumbling head over feet into forever. Where Fred was cinnamon and fire, George was a a storm, wave after wave after wave of want and pleasure. They were earthquakes and waves, sun flares and avalanches. 

Hermione felt another pair of lips press to the back of her neck, peppering kisses there that contrasted the slow and steady pace George was holding to with a restraint she could not have set herself. The wholeness made her feel incandescent and shot her headlong into sensate pleasure, beyond anything but reaching out for more. 

Somehow, she reached behind her, pulled Fred closer still, pressing herself tightly between them, and looped her arms around George’s neck in order to deepen their kiss and provide Fred better access. It was a thousand times better, not that she had ever dreamed it possible. 

She knew they liked it as much as she did, she knew, because she could feel some of George’s control slip as Fred nibbled the side of her neck. When she felt the drag of Fred’s tongue across the sensitive juncture of her neck and shoulder at the same moment that George was doing the same thing within her mouth, she moaned. 

Hermione felt Fred’s ragged exhalation and the smile against her warm flesh spoke volumes. Hermione was breathless when he spoke, as George pulled away from her mouth to stare into her eyes. “Look at our girl, George.” 

The passion in his voice matched the same emotion in George’s eyes. Hermione’s nerve endings danced as that realization she’d had but minutes earlier lit up in her mind, changing everything and nothing at the same time. When, somehow, as though really could communicate telepathically, Fred was again devouring mouth with languid sucks as George did the same to that spot Fred had worried gently into her skin, everything in the core of her body and soul went molten. 

Just as Hermione rocked experimentally against Fred and was preparing to figure out some way to twine herself around him, a timer by the forgotten potion rang insistently. George’s hands were stealing up her top as he gruffly insisted, “Fuck it.” 

Fred tore his mouth away from hers, and caught his brother’s eye. Hermione took their sidebar as a chance to rock back against George and paint a broad stripe along Fred’s clavicle. “Damn potion took four months to perfect.” 

Hermione let her arms fall, and slumped against George who pressed a damp kiss on the other side of her neck. Hermione took in the feel of his swollen lips and felt quite satisfied with herself. “Go play mad scientist.” She pressed a gentle kiss to two pairs of lips as they stepped away. “Just don’t wait years to kiss me again.” 

* * *

 

Hermione swiped a scoopful of healing paste and exited the room. She stood on the other side of the closed door until her pulse was steady and her limbs were no longer shaking. Meditation served her well in this regard. 

She was walking down the hall rubbing it into the developing love bite she was rather proud of but had to heal lest someone see it. From her landing on the stairs, Ginny hissed, “Was the thunder and lightening really necessary?” 

Hermione gaped when she looked out the window into the balmy summer day, and saw that, despite the fine weather, a thin line of thunder and lightening was passing them by. Hermione laughed at the dismayed expression on Ginny’s face. No wonder she was scandalized. Thank Merlin they had stopped. 

Hermione cast yet another charm over herself to neaten her clothing and patted down her hair. She headed down the stairs, a pleasant expression on her face. Ginny muttered, “Well, you needn’t look quite so chuffed. Mum’s bound to notice.” 

Hermione toned herself down, nodded when Mrs. Weasley confirmed that she had found the wallet the twins had misplaced, and assured her with what she hoped was an appropriate tone that the storm was no doubt a fluke and would dissipate before it rained on their way to the village shop. 

Once there. Hermione put a bottle of Irn Bru in the basket and smiled serenely at Ginny when she muttered, “I did this to myself.” 

Hermione patted her hand. “Isn’t life just wonderful?”

* * *

And so the summer went along, with the frequent addition of kissing into their routines and timetables.

Hermione had several chats with her mother, but she considered them worth it when she weighed the momentary discomfort against the pleasures she found with Fred and George. 

Ginny rolled her eyes, Ron remained oblivious to anything that wasn’t quidditch, and Harry studied her carefully before patting her arm gently. She decided that from him, that was as a good as a blessing as she’d ever get. 

Percy walked in on them once, and he’d gone white, turned right around, went out and not come back. The twins had laughed as they’d gone back to kissing her, wondering against her skin what had shocked him most. Hermione privately thought that poor Percy’s glimpse of her bra strap on her visible shoulder from between where the twins had been blocking her from the direction of the door was the first time he’d seen any bit of a bra. 

Charlie visited for a time, until he got word that within a week Aunt Muriel would be coming to stay. Hermione knew, as did everyone else, that the emergency he’d cooked up was an excuse to go sleep on his friend’s sofa. Leaving for London before the Quidditch Cup was totally not work related.

Charlie knew they knew, but he didn’t seem to care or make excuses for it. 

* * *

Hermione resolved to find out why everyone scattered like mice when Muriel came to visit, even if it did slip her mind until the day before their Great Aunt was meant to arrive. Mum and Dad were at work, and so they had a rare day here without Ginny, Ron, or Harry before Remus arrived for a Lupin Lesson. Their chosen activity had been totally forgone. They hadn’t even been here twenty minutes.

Hermione considered their unity on the use of a tiny sliver of privacy to be ingenious. 

 Hermione stared up at the ceiling as two pairs of eyes stared down at the way her hair fanned out over her pillows. “Why is Muriel coming again?” 

“Because it’s our punishment.” Fred muttered, flopping down beside her to trace his fingers over the shell of her ear.

George settled himself next to her, and, as had become his habit, slung a leg gently over hers. “For going to the Cup.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, “Merlin forbid anything interrupt the Cup.” 

Fred feigned shock, “Woman, the Cup is our Library of Alexandria. Mock us—”

“—If you please, but don’t mock the Cup. It is sacred.” George’s fingers dipped into her belly button through a gape in her blouse as he chided her gently. Those same fingers ghosted over the soft and giving curve of her flesh there, sliding up until he was stopped by the next button. 

Hermione considered her words as his fingers moved down, and Fred pulled the clip from her hair. She quirked a grin. “Mock you two? Never will I, and never did I.”

“Insolence will get you everywhere, Kitten.” Fred pressed a kiss to her temple, “Depending on where you want to go.”

Hermione pulled George down for a light kiss, and asked, “Are you two going to stare at my buttons all day, or are you going to undo them?”

“Fred…” George pulled back, all horror and laughter, “She doubts our button undoing skills.” 

“Silly girl.” Fred teased, earning him a kiss of his own. “I suppose…”

“We’ll have to prove her wrong.” They spoke as one. 

George gestured grandly, “You first, me ‘ol buddy.” 

Fred refused in that same exaggeration of their natural West Country accent. They took their own slight cadences and pulled out all the stops until it was a joke, and not a very funny one from her perspective. 

“No…” He waved a hand just out of Hermione’s reach. “G’ on then.” 

Hermione huffed, and proceeded to reach for her own fastenings while they bantered back and forth above her. By the time they sorted out who was going to do her buttons, they’d be done, and they could move on.

Hermione had barely reached for her bottom button when her hands were gently but firmly guided back onto the duvet and pressed flat with their larger palms, as if to ask her to keep them where they wanted them. “Palms flat, Kitten.”

Hermione’s breath hitched as her palms were weighted down and then let go. Audibly. She trusted them to make of that what they would.  She could practically hear the cogs ticking in their minds. Not, of course, that this awareness was made clear in any other way their continual avoidance of the issue at hand. Hermione was half-out of her mind, when, amid their banter it was somehow decided that one button would be slipped from its confines. 

Slowly, so slowly, George slipped the top button just above her cleavage free. His fingers ghosted there, but paid the noticeable slope and valley between her breasts no mind, perfunctorily slipping the button free. “I don’t know, Fred, that Bulgarian seeker.”

“Victor Krum?” Fred scoffed, as though she wasn’t laying between them, heart pounding. It was hardly as though she was being ignored, though, because Fred was idly toying with the next button from the bottom. Hermione bit her lip, and noticed that they were tracking every second she kept her bottom lip tucked between her teeth. 

Four more to go. Fred slid the button through, his attention seemingly on George who nodded, “He’s fantastic, even I can admit that! You heard that match last week.”

Hermione’s right arm twitched. A broad hand and sure fingers slid down her arm, a soothing gesture more than anything else. Three more to go. George slid it through, his fingers skimming over the top of her bra, talking all the while about this Krum person. 

She didn’t give a flying fuck about Victor Krum. She just wanted their attention fully and explicitly on her. She wasn’t going to ask for it. She could wait them out. They were teenage boys, after all. She hadn’t pushed them, but she knew enough to know that doing so would be easy enough. 

Hermione’s breath hitched when her shirt pulled, the two buttons left in the middle covering little. It took everything she had not to sit up and take over.

Her boys were so neat and pristine, and here she was, nearly half dressed, flushed, and wanting between them. They were supposed to be sixteen year old idiots. They weren’t supposed to be able to do this to her with quite so much ease. It was almost as though they were pressing buttons and checking boxes she had been previously unaware of even having. 

By the time the last button popped free of its placket, Hermione felt certain that they had proved their point beyond irrefutability. She wouldn’t even begin to deny that she enjoyed this, whatever this was in the end. With gentle support, Hermione sat up and slid off the cotton top, tossing it off the edge of her bed. 

With a sense of purpose, she grasped the bottom of Fred’s shirt in question. She pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw, “A little reciprocity would be nice.” 

Meanwhile, George was already shucking his top. He was sitting directly beside her, so Hermione shifted her weight and kissed him properly, her fingers raking gently over quidditch honed muscle groups. How unfair that they were equally beautiful in their own individual ways, and they got stuck with a bonded who had a muffin top and was too soft and too rounded.

George pulled back, “I can hear you thinking, Hermione.” 

Fred slid his fingers under the strap of her bra, and slide the side of his finger over the slope of her shoulder, all the while asserting, “You’re beautiful.”

“Majority rules.” Hermione joked, if only to avoid talking about her body image half naked in their arms.

They shared a look that spoke volumes. George regarded her gently, “Kitten, be careful—”

“You just might dare us to show you.” Fred admonished, more promise than anything. 

Hermione gasped into Fred’s mouth as he kissed her deeply and fully.

It wasn’t the kiss that shocked her, although that was no small part of it. Inside of her, deep in her soul, where the bond dwelled, she felt overwhelmed by a new surge of overwhelming and total desire in her blood. It wasn’t her own. She knew her own wanting well.

As she reclined back onto the pillows, Hermione let those feelings wash over her.

She literally shook with wonderment and awe when she realized that the emotions she was feeling as George ran his hands up her sides wasn’t her own pleasure. It was his own, just as the fission of passion and desire that burned next to it were not her own, but Fred’s emotional state as he looked at her. How had she missed this facet of their bond? 

How had she been focused on her own pleasure that she had never realized that she could literally feel what they felt, even in this? It probably took a little bit of effort, but she could see the benefits to tapping into this once and a while. It was, in a word, intensity times three.

Hermione’s magic built along her fingertips. She pulled it back down into herself and shuddered. “Letting me on your secrets?”

“Yes.” Fred nodded, “Now block it out.”

Hermione’s eyes flew it open. “What?”

“Everything but what you feel, Hermione.” George agreed, his eyes intent, “You can do it.” 

Hermione made her wishes plain, with no uncertainty about her intended goals. “I don’t want to float.”

They understood what she was not putting into words in this moment but would quite soon. Fred pressed an openmouthed kiss to the upper swell of her chest, just above her heart. “You’re going to be too busy telling us exactly what feels good.”

Hermione’s hand clenched in the rumpled duvet. Catching that hand, George pressed a kiss to her palm, and set it gently back down. 

He sat back on his knees, running his hand down her leg. Hermione’s eyes were glued to his as he pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee gently pushing her jersey skirt aside. “Promise.”

Hermione, encompassing her boys in a single holding gaze, nodded as the breath her in her lungs fled. 

* * *

Hermione couldn’t believe their luck. A handful of mutually satisfying orgasms later, and they had totally blown the electrical in her parents house. Fred and George lost it when she’d said that, and Hermione wished she had reconsidered her words. 

“Which one of you is going to explain to my parents how we fried the electrical in their house?” Hermione jammed her hands on her hips, “Because that is one conversation I do not look forward to having.”

“We’ll just repairo it.” George shrugged. 

Fred proceeded to speak the incantation, and flipped the switch on the kitchen wall. Hermione’s freshly showered body radiated not only the scent of lemons but an air of frustration that was at odds with her previously relaxed state only moments ago. 

The switch did nothing. Fred and George paled. 

Hermione sighed, “Don’t you think I tried that?” 

The Burrow didn’t have electricity, so naturally the twins were no help when it came to brainstorming. Two years ago, they had never even turned on a lamp. Hermione set them to work repairing the lightbulbs that had shattered, and paced, thinking of a spell that might work. 

She tried no less than six, when a knock came at the door. Hermione prayed it wasn’t a neighbor asking if they too had experienced a power cut. She prayed for wisdom as she opened the door. 

On the stoop stood Remus J. Lupin. Hermione was relieved and nervous at the same time. She had forgotten about a Lupin Lesson this afternoon, to take place here and not at the Burrow. That was why Ron and Ginny hadn’t come along with them to the Granger house, after all. 

She invited him in, and watched in horror as his eyes narrowed. Oh fuck, Hermione thought.

She had just invited a werewolf inside. He would have to smell the fried wires and only Merlin knew what else. She forced herself to meet his gaze and ask, “How are you Remus?”

He wasn’t stupid, clearly. He looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Fine, just fine.”

“Well, that’s just grand.” Hermione thought quickly on her feet, “You see, we’ve just a bit of a brewing accident, and I think we might have, uhm, fried the electrical circuits here.” Hermione confessed another bit of information, “The breaker sparked when I touched it.”

“Quite.” Remus replied, “One would think you had infused your potion with a pretty strong measure of earth magics. Nevertheless, these things happen. They won’t happen again without shutting off the power, will they?”

Hermione felt herself color. “Certainly not.” She did not add that it took time to develop the control of her earth magic around electrical sources. It hadn’t been the foremost thing on her mind, and multiple waves of energy had likely only compounded the damage. 

When the twins came downstairs, after having repaired every lightbulb on the second floor, and a crack in her father’s telly, Remus smirked.

He’d been at the Burrow this morning for breakfast, and had seen Fred and George then. She turned around, and saw that, in their fumble to get their shirts on, Fred had put on the shirt that George had been wearing this morning, and vice versa. Remus remembered enough to know that their jeans were different, and were freshly tided via spellwork. 

Hermione let her hand press to her forehead as she spoke, “I’ve just been telling Remus about our potions accident.” 

“Right.” Fred agreed, from the landing, picking up Crooks, who was forever begging attention from one of them. “The prototypes are volatile, you know.” 

“Go off at the slightest—” George shut the hell up with a single glance from her. “Well, you know.” 

Remus had a complete poker face. “Actually, not really.” 

It took everything Hermione had not to react. 

She saw Fred and George exchange a glance, unsure for the first time in forever exactly how to respond. They had, it seemed, been out shocked by their childhood idol. Now was not the time for jokes and pranks. 

Hermione cut to the chase, “Can we fix the house or not?”

“Oh, sure.” Remus replied. He added, “Your parents are pulling into the drive. They’ll get to see some pretty extensive magical work. Isn’t that nice?” 

“Lovely.” Hermione muttered. “Just lovely.” 

Remus shifted into teaching mode, “I’d come up with some details, if you were three. Lies have too many details, the truth has none, and cover stories, just enough.” 


	7. Summer 1994

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of Summer 1994

 In the preceding days, her boys had taken to hiding out at her house, often bringing Ron and Ginny. Yesterday, of course, they hadn’t, and that had led Remus to replacing the entire electrical system in the Granger home, and delivering none too thinly veiled lectures about magical control. 

Ginny had confided that Aunt Muriel had an acerbic personality that grated on her nerves like nothing else. Ginny had gone so far as to forgo the comforts of her own room to bunk with Hermione at her house the night before she came, just so that she might avoid meeting the old lady until there was no other choice. 

Hermione kept this in mind when she was introduced to the elderly lady. She had dressed carefully, making sure her hair was away from her face, and her elbows and knees were covered, as her own Grandmother had expected.

But where Grandmother Granger was a warm and loving person, Muriel Prewitt was whip thin, greying, with a spine of steel and a sharp nose. In anyone else, these factors combined might have been imposing and regal. Rather, Aunt Muriel was a tough old bird who didn’t care who knew her opinions, and made no bones about her lack of tack or even decency. Age, said she, was the price she paid to not care what anyone else said about the truth, which she uniquely possessed in full measure. 

For care she did not. Upon what Hermione felt to be a polite introduction, the elderly lady sniffed, and raised an eyebrow, “Oh, dear, is this the Muggleborn?” 

Hermione nodded, as Ginny choked on air. “I’m fine with being called Hermione, Miss Prewitt.”

Hermione remained standing. Aunt Muriel did not bid her to sit. Hermione supposed she was to remain standing before her betters, and did so only to plan a hasty exit. 

“In addition to the circumstances of your birth, you are in possession of a sharp tongue and skinny ankles.” Muriel continued, “Do you know what they say about girls with skinny ankles?”

Hermione kept her voice flat, “Do you, ma’am?” 

“They come to no good end!” She asserted, sipping her tea with some force, a gulp where a sip would have done. “Why, my sister always said that skinny ankles and a disproportionate bosom were always a harbinger of doom. And right she was!”

“I will hope, then, that I will be the exception to the rule as I have been in other circumstances.” Hermione swallowed her words after that, and smiled gently. 

This exchange had not pleased the ever contrary Aunt Muriel. She lived, it seemed, to get a rise out of people, and she could not manage to get a rise out of Hermione, or back her into a corner. 

His displeasure was moderate until news of Hermione’s arrival spread. She became pinched and even more ill-humored when Fred and George came downstairs to rescue her. Under Muriel’s sharp consideration, Hermione accepted their greetings, which were little more than an acknowledgment of her presence and casual smiles in her direction. 

Muriel made plain her displeasure when she and the twins even so much looked at one another. Of course, Fred and George being Fred and George lived to rile their aunt up, and would call attention to the slightest interaction. At least they didn’t slip and call her Kitten. Hermione was sure if they had, Aunt Muriel would have had kittens. 

Hermione went into the kitchen to help prepare for dinner, and watched Molly press her lips together as her Aunt settled herself at the table with her knitting. Desperate to keep herself busy in a tense environment, Hermione took over peeling the massive amount of potatoes needed for at least 15 portions. 

Hermione took up the mundane potato peeler, and took over the sink to make quick work of the job. Hermione’s mother was one of the best surgeons in the country, and she had taught her daughter early on to properly wield blades, even kitchen tools. Hermione liked peeling potatoes, as odd as that was. 

Muriel made no secret of her shock at Hermione’s choice, “Molly, haven’t you told the child there’s a spell for that?” 

Hermione simply continued to work on picking up a rinsed potato, peel it, and place it in the pot. Molly glanced at her in apology, and replied, “Sometimes doing things in a mundane fashion is a perfectly logical choice.” She smiled at her aunt, “I’ve found that rolling pasta by hand does give it a better consistency.” 

She huffed and said nothing, pointedly focusing on her magical knitting. When dinner was on the table, Muriel sniffed at her forkful of mash, and noted, “They’re lumpy.”

Molly replied, “Why, Aunt, I mashed them magically.”

Hermione did her best to hide her smile, though Ginny, who had been hounded into the kitchen by her Great Aunt had done no such thing. Percy had claimed the need to work late, Charlie was faffing about in London, Bill was in Egypt. That left George, Fred, Ginny, and Ron along with Hermione and Molly and Arthur to handle Muriel. 

Hermione took refuge washing the dishes with Fred and George, if only to hide in the small nook of the kitchen that held the sink and dish cupboards. One thing she would say for Molly and Arthur was that their sons did their share of the housework, and had a very feminist approach to division of labor in the home. It was something her parents had always modeled, so she was happy to be in accord in this area. 

In any case, even though their activities were totally innocuous, Muriel kept her shrewd eyes upon them as though she expected clothes to come flying off amid scraping off plates. It was absurd. Hermione wedged herself between the twins at the sink, and whispered, “I think she thinks muggleborn girls are succubi.” 

George bit his lip, the sponge tight in his grip. 

Fred replied, “It’s not that. I promise she’s not some kind of blood supremacist.” He added as Muriel came closer, having noticed Hermione’s change in location, “Mum and Dad would never speak to her if it was about blood. In the 1890s, she advocated for muggleborn rights at Hogwarts.”

Hermione thought that, perhaps, if Muriel didn’t regard her with such distrust that they might get along quite well. Hermione was nothing if not opinionated. She would respect the same in Muriel, if only she could understand the elderly woman’s motivations for her cold attitudes. If it wasn’t her blood, then it had to be something else.

Hermione wondered if it might even be personal dislike. 

* * *

Each Weasley, even Molly and the oft-absentminded Arthur begged her not to take the old bat personally. Nothing, in the short time they spent together, seemed to find any common ground between them. When Hermione knitted, she knitted incorrectly. When she participated in conversations, she was too opinionated. When she even so much as answered a question from George or from Fred, the elderly woman’s face froze. 

Hermione did her best to stay out of the way. Remus, during a Lupin Lesson, told her to simply forgive the mistakes of the past, and move forward. Her Mum and Dad told her to kill the old bat with kindness, and play the game. Sirius grumbled, and told her that Muriel Prewitt had never been his favorite person, and given her the password for two more bookshelves she’d never noticed prior to that point. 

The Weasley siblings rallied around her. Ginny was fiercely protective. Ron looked right through his aunt, and the twins altered nothing about their habits and routines in the face of their visitor’s displeasure. They continued to sit on either side of her as they always had, continued to involve her in the plots and pranks and ideas, continued to seek out her opinion. 

On the last full day of Muriel’s visit, they were working on a few orders for WWW, when something unexpected went wrong, and the potion exploded.

Hermione threw up a shield, pulling magic from the atmosphere to contain the damage. Even so, the house rocked with the explosion. They did their best to use the bond to counter it, but it couldn’t be totally avoided. Hermione knew that the bond was the only reason that her boys still had a bedroom with a roof and a floor and an outer wall.  

“We’re fine!” George yelled, coughing over the smoke that had billowed out before they’d realized the whole thing was going to explode.

“Small potions accident!” Fred called out, shoving the window open.

Hermione released the shield, ready and waiting to throw it up again as the melted cauldron bubbled and hissed. Carefully, she approached the disaster zone that was a good half of the twins bedroom. 

The door flew open, banging on the inside wall. Hermione barely resisted the urge to throw up a shield in automatic reaction. 

Molly and Arthur hesitated in the hazy doorway. Arthur patted his wife on the shoulder, “There, Mollywobbles, I told you it was only a potions accident.”

“That’s what we said, Mum.” Fred returned, looking around the disaster zone. 

“What were you trying to do?” Molly asked, flicking a glance between all three of them, her face bloodless.

“Fainting fancies.” George informed her, carefully. He seemed to be looking at his mother’s shoulder, just past her eyes. Hermione wondered at the lack of eye contact. Accident aside, they were brilliant at charms work and brewing, and there wasn’t a whole lot of false modesty in George’s personality. 

“I suppose—” She snapped, “That no matter what I say, you will not aside this pranking business. You earned fantastic OWLs, perfect OWLs even, and you’re throwing a secure future for a risky dream!” She continued, tears in her eyes, “Don’t you think the world is going to be tough enough, life hard enough, without this continual impulse to go and seek trouble?”

“We just want to be happy.” Fred’s voice was deadly earnest, soft and vulnerable. “That’s all you should want, too, Mum.”

“We’re not going to revisit this now, boys.” Arthur declared.

There had been something of a reoccurring argument over this summer about the aspirations George and Fred had for their careers. Molly was set on the Ministry for her sons, confident that they would go far there. Hermione knew they would have done, but it wasn’t what they wanted. 

Hermione hurriedly and carefully grabbed the decontamination bucket out of the closet, and began to use her wand to move any badly damaged item to it. The chamber was Hermione’s creation, in that in placing items therein, they were restored to cleanliness. It was a modified mop bucket with a lid transfigured into plastic from an old hair tie she’d had in her hair at the time. 

Her boys held firm in the face of their mother’s vocal disagreement. They showed her products, and all Hermione could see was them begging their mother in the only way they knew how to see them as individuals, not as twins, but as people with dreams and goals and ideas. They wanted her support. They wanted her to value that which they valued. Molly loved them, that was very clear, but she was scared. 

 Arthur took a look at Hermione, anti-contamination bucket in hand. She was quickly dropping every ruined object in the drum. “Alright there, Hermione?” 

“Just fine.” Hermione replied gently, gripping the bucket handle. “I’m sorry about the explosion. It was my idea to use the star anise as an anti-fungal agent, but I’d forgotten that, unless precisely balanced, it interacts with other ingredients.”

Fred and George denied this in unison. 

“It wasn’t—”

“No, I—”

“Well, no harm done, truly.” Arthur looked around the room, “Your shields held.”

Hermione swallowed and nodded. “Thanks to Remus.” 

Molly sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t use that magic unless it’s absolutely unavoidable. You run the risk of being discovered.” 

Fred asked, “Who’s going to run their mouths?”

“Not even Percy’d carry tales about this.” George assured her. 

Hermione did not understand Molly’s concerns, but she did try to be careful. It was only now that her ears were ringing from the blast that frustration welled. 

“We’ll clean this up.” Hermione wiped purple sludge stuck on the wall with the edge of her sleeve. 

“This house didn’t even shake this much during the Blitz!” A shrill voice called from downstairs.

Molly sighed, and left the room. Looking upon them with a soft sort of understanding, Arthur patted Fred’s shoulder and followed his wife. 

They were silent as they cleaned up the room. 

* * *

Things that had heretofore confused her became much more clear when Hermione was heading down the winding hall to go and get some more cleaning supplies from the kitchen. Even with magic, one could not replace all household cleaners. 

Hermione heard her name from where she stood at the top of the stairs going down into the kitchen. Carefully, she listened as the conversation continued, “Shameful.” Muriel cried, “You mind me, Molly, you should have separated them until they were of bondable age.”

“Like your sister did, you mean, with my brothers and their wife?” Molly returned. Hermione could hear the rage in her voice, the unhidden rancor. It surprised Hermione. Even when angry, she was never this biting. 

My brothers, she’d said, and their wife. The triad that should have guided them were their aunt and uncles. No wonder Remus had been so apologetic. My brothers and their wife. My brothers and their wife. 

Suddenly, so much made sense. Hermione sank down to sit on the top step, knowing that if caught she would shoot to her feet and say that she hadn’t heard anything and was coming down the hall. “They got less than a year together, less than a year, Muriel, because this family was so concerned with convention.”

“At least their year together was of much good to society.” Muriel snapped, “You watch! You watch! That girl will come to no good end, and she’ll take your sons with her.” 

Hermione had come to feel that she would, in fact, have a hard road to walk. The idea of doing so without her boys with her was unfathomable and heart wrenchingly terrifying. The boys would defy their parents for her, but she never wanted to ask that of them. 

“You would ask me to separate them?” Molly returned. Hermione heard the oven slam shut. “Do you have any idea how Fabian and Gideon suffered, being so near to her and never, not once, even being permitted to approach her? They bled for her but were forced to playact with others. Their every conversation with her was suspect.”

Hermione made a connection instantly. George. Gideon. Fred. Fabian. Twins. Molly had named her sons for uncles they would never remember knowing. Remus saying, _I’m sorry for your loss, you would have had a triad to guide you, they would have loved you_. Molly’s shock and horror that night after the Stone. Her increasing permissiveness with the time they spent together. The way Arthur treated her parents like family. How much Molly knew about bonds. 

They were trying to make better choices, different choices, from the start. 

Muriel cried, “And yet—”

“My sons will not suffer from the mistakes of the dead. Mum and Dad were wrong, and you were wrong. We were all wrong. We thought we were noble.” Molly laughed bitterly, and began chopping something roughly and with force, “Noble! Making three people suffer for years, years they could have been, would have been, as happy as Hermione is with Fred and George.” 

“Happy! You call that happy?” Muriel returned, “It is an abomination! The whole thing! As soon as you discovered their affinity, you should have put your foot down.” 

“What, exactly, is so wrong with being friends with your spouses?” Molly asked, softly, “I was Arthur’s friend before anything else, just as they are now. It has made for a strong marriage.”

Hermione’s heart pounded at the revelation that wasn’t really a revelation at all. It was only thrilling to know that yes, no matter that no one had ever said, people they loved saw their bond as beautiful and worthwhile. She knew how desperately her boys wanted their mother’s approval and blessing. It was a thrill to know that they had it so strongly, at least in this.

Hermione knew then that Molly would come around about the business. 

She too, wanted Molly’s love and acceptance. It was nice to know that she still had it after nearly blowing up the house.

“Molly, do be serious, do.” Muriel threw her hands up, “You know the truth as well as I. They’re on a fast track into fornication and hedonism.”

“Do you have a problem, Aunt, with the fact that Fred and George are the anchors in a triad, the arms in a V?” Molly asked, “I want you to tell me, in no uncertain terms, what exactly is your objection. Is it their ages? Is it the political situation?"

Hermione knew those factors were lamentable, but no one could change them. She would understand if Muriel’s fears were so rational. Before Hermione could even think about fornication and hedonism, Molly continued, “Or is it, perhaps, that you have the same problem now as you did then?”

Hermione heard, even from outside the room, Muriel splutter. “How dare you!”

Molly dared even more, it seemed. “You pushed celibacy so hard with Fabian and Gideon that they were afraid to express natural affections toward their wife, even after they married.” 

Hermione understood Molly’s questions as she rehashed history. Muriel was not a fan, it seemed, of sexual relationships, of romantic relationships, that were non-dyadic in nature.

For someone who disliked muggle thinking, it seemed an awfully muggle position to take. 

This suspicion was confirmed when Molly continued, “You asserted then that, while you understood the magical value of such bonds, you did not understand why it needed to be a sexual and romantic relationship, knowing as you did all the while that the sexual and romantic component of the bond is fundamental to putting it to use.”

Muriel asserted in her strident tones, “I said it then, and I say so now.” 

“Well, you will not say anything of the sort to these children.” Molly snapped, “Not while there is breath in my body and magic in my soul.”

“I’ve a right to express concern.” Muriel sniffed. “Do you know your boys intend to—”

“Yes, I am aware.” Molly admitted, “And, in time, I will fully support it.”

“She is muggleborn. She will want a muggle marriage. She will want to do…” Muriel searched for a word, “Muggle things.” Muriel insisted, “And what will the girl do, then, hmm? Who will she introduce as her husband, and who will play at being her husband’s brother, desperately wishing he could acknowledge her as his wife, all the while resenting his own flesh and blood for a privilege denied to him, one offered to all men?” 

The breath in Hermione’s lungs froze. She understood, now, Muriel’s dislike of her. She was worried for Fred and George, worried one day that Hermione would want to live, at least a little, in the community that had shaped her early years. It was a legitimate fear. 

“They will work those things out in time.” Molly asserted, “As Fabian and Gideon once had to do.”

“You watch. Muggle values don’t fade.” Muriel asserted, “She will choose one, and leave the other behind. And—”

Had she, Fabian and Gideon’s wife, been muggleborn? Had there been this sort of conflict? Had she really done as Muriel was suggesting? Hermione knew now, without doubt, that she could never choose. To be a dyad rather than a triad seemed far worse than being alone. To choose one of the men she loved arbitrarily seemed the worst kind of betrayal. In doing so, she would not only destroy the relationships she had with George and Fred, but also the bonds they had with each other. 

“Then and only then you’ll be happy, Muriel.” Molly slammed down her cutting board, “But I’ll tell you this: that day will never come, never, and you will die as you have lived, a miserable, bigoted, crone.” 

“How dare you!” Muriel breathed, “You dare—”

“If you spent less time dwelling on adolescent sexuality and more time considering how focused and dependable Hermione’s influence has made those boys…” Molly, cried, “They got all their OWLs, all of them!” Molly informed her aunt, “And how much more secure they have helped her to feel, you would be far better off.”

“Well, I never.” Muriel huffed. 

“No, you never.” Molly affirmed, “And what’s more, I don’t care what they do when, though they I know want them to wait as long as possible, because I know that they have taken the time to develop bonds that exceed beyond the consummation rituals.” She continued, “Can you say the same for my brothers and their wife?”

Muriel snapped, “Perhaps they’d be alive, if they had not died fighting to save that girl. I blame the triads for the risk this family is in, and you will not change my mind on that scare.”

“I am very proud to have raised fighters, warriors, and I am very blessed to have been given another daughter in Hermione.” Molly asserted, “Do not, do not, blame my sons for being who they are and loving who they do.” Molly finished, “Or else we shan't have anything more to say to each other, Aunt.” 

Hermione fled as Molly declared she was going to to go check on Ginny, tears in her voice. 

* * *

 

When she got back to the bedroom, where a cleanup was quickly taking place, Fred asked, “Did you find the bleach?”

Hermione shook her head, and sank to the floor, sitting on the floor against the closed door. She needed to think. She needed to understand. She needed to know. Hermione looked up from her lap to see both of her boys staring at her, worry and concern plain on their faces, matching their emotions that were even now reaching out to comfort her. 

Hermione only had one question, “What was her name?”

A look of understanding crested over their faces in tandem. Hermione felt a rush of sympathy, of love, emanate from the bond. They sat down on the floor beside her. She let them gather her close, let their heartbeats encourage her own to slow. 

After a long moment, Fred replied, “Her name was Dorcas Meadowes-Prewitt.”

“Voldemort killed her himself.” George added, “They died fighting. They died as heroes.” 

“I’ve never once been afraid of him, before.” Hermione choked out, “But the thought of losing you both…”

“He might try.” George kissed the top of her head, “But we’re not them. And we’re not consigned to their fate.”

“Or did that explosion addle you, and you’re a fan of divination now?” Fred looped an arm around her waist, “Because that’d be worrisome. But Voldemort?”

Hermione laughed as tears dripped from her eyes. After a moment, she sobered, pressing a gentle kiss of reassurance to their mouths, pulling back after scant seconds with twin sighs. 

* * *

If nothing else, Hermione counted the explosion as a boon. Aunt Muriel packed herself off before dinner, where she hadn’t been expected to leave until morning. Somehow, word got round, and Charlie and Bill showed up, a large bag of ice cream tubs in one hand, and a bag of toppings in the other. Charlie carried a cake. 

Mrs. Weasley, very put out indeed, turned quite purple when her eldest sons bustled inside. She had planned a large meal to take place in the garden in an effort to appease the old harridan.

Hermione continued getting out the knives and forks as Charlie clapped the twins on their broad shoulders. “You two are geniuses. Blow up the house and she flees!” 

“She is my aunt.” Mrs. Weasley reminded her brood in a tight voice, “Good relationships are important.” Mrs. Weasley was forking jacket potatoes onto a large platter. 

“Aw, Mum.” Bill replied, wrapping her in a hug after he set down the bags. “We like her. From afar, you know. The Cup’s this week. This is fraternal bonding.”

“What are Hermione and I?” Ginny snapped, grabbing for serving bowls her mother had requested, “Toasters?”

“My apologies.” Bill winked at them, his fang earring dangling, “No sexism was intended.”

Huffing, Ginny peered into the bags, “Why isn’t there any toffee?”

“No one is to spoil their dinner!” Mrs. Weasley cried, picking up her wand and screeching in frustration when it did not move the pans but instead emitted rubber pants. She tossed it down on the counter, “You two! All those brains and this is what you do?”

“Well, admittedly it’s not our best.” Fred grinned, from where he was digging out tablecloths.

“The pants were Hermione’s idea.” George teased, pouring gravy into a boat.

Hermione sent a small wave of stinging magic wandlessly into them. They rubbed their bums gently, after squeaking in surprise. Ginny cackled with laughter over the din of dinner preparations. 

“Well, I never!” Mrs. Weasley cried, “Blaming Hermione for your escapades. You could have perfectly good jobs like your brothers, you know…” 

Rather than listen to yet another lecture on their future, her boys laughed, and fled to help Bill and Charlie in their quest to set up the tables.

Hermione went outside to see that they were all laughing and joking, playing bumper cars with the table tops, zooming around the garden as though they were riding magic carpets, which were of course banned in the UK.

Fred was driving one table, with Charlie surfing on the opposite end, whereas George was balancing and firing stinging hexes at Charlie as Bill evaded the other table  with loop-de-loops. 

Percy called out from his window, “Do you mind? I am trying to work! Mr. Crouch—”

Ron called out, “How does Penelope feel about your relationship with Crouch? Seems a little crowded.”

“Not if you know what you’re—” George was cut off, mercifully, by Crooks’ jumping up on the hovering table to catch a gnome that was seeking refuge from her bottlebrush half-kneazle. Crooks was always looking out for his Mummy, wasn’t he? 

“I am not in a romantic relationship with my boss, Ronald.” Percy snapped as George's table rose. “I am trying to work, however, because Mr. Crouch does—-”

“You know we’ll love who you love, Percival.” Fred called out, “Don’t fuss.” 

Percy slammed the window.

This startled Crooks, who was seconds from leaping off the levitating table and breaking his neck. George couldn’t get a grip on the animal, so Hermione pushed up, as she had practiced at Lupin Lessons, and stepped quickly towards  Crooky, who was about ten feet off the ground on the very edge of the table. 

Hermione scooped up Crooks, and let him purr against her chest. His sandpapery tongue skittered out and swiped her arm. She loved her familiar. 

“Won’t fly, but you’ll walk on air.” George reached out, and gave her a hand onto the table like she was getting into a carriage, “Silly girl.”

“I had to rescue poor Crooksy. He was running from you.” Hermione cuddled him gently, “He’s a fine, upstanding gentlecat. Aren’t you Crooksy?”

The feline man in her life seemingly grinned at George. He loved George especially, but that didn’t mean he didn’t always seem to get a thrill out of reminding the boys who was Mummy’s favorite. It certainly wasn’t the gingers in the family. 

“Aw, you know you love our minds.”  Fred called out. Hermione knew he had been watching her intently as she’d gone aloft. Remus had ingrained that attention in their minds, slowly, painfully, and unerringly. 

 Rolling her eyes, Hermione gripped Crooks carefully. Hermione turned to walk back to the ground with her cat. It was as she stepped firmly onto solid ground that she realized everyone was staring at her. 

Hermione shrugged, set Crooksy on the ground as George zoomed off. He raced after a gnome, and Hermione returned to Ginny’s side. Ginny clamped her jaw together, “You can walk on air?”

“No, no, of course not.” Hermione blushed, “I simply modify magical energy to support my weight, and though it looks like I’m just moving through air, really it’s quite…” Hermione broke off when she realized that Ginny likely didn’t care for the technicalities. 

Hermione noticed that everyone was staring at her and Fred and George in shock. Bill didn’t make eye contact, Charlie kept shooting worried glances their way. Ron was totally unfazed. Ginny, of course, was unfailingly supportive. Hermione wasn’t sure how her actions, so unconscious, changed the entire tenor of the gathering for a few minutes. 

This sobering influence was enough to get things on the right path, and soon the tables were set, and they carried massive piles of food out to the table. Percy talked with his Dad about work, and of course, Mr. Crouch. Mrs. Weasley was quite horrified by Bill’s appearance, believing he’d be more clean cut once he was outside of Egypt. 

Hermione spent the meal chatting with Ginny, who was across from her, until she heard the conversation turn to quidditch. When conversation turned to Victor Krum, Hermione inhaled gently and focused on her food. She knew her face was red, given the look Ginny was sending her way. She was going to kill the twins. She was certain that everyone would be talking about Krum at the Cup.

And what would Hermione be thinking about when they did? Not of quidditch or the seemingly sexy Bulgarian. No, whenever she heard his name, all she could think about was where she had been and what she had been doing when her boys were casually discussing him. And of course, that thought led to others, which led to others, which led right back around to where she had started. 

Hermione felt Fred’s internal smug laughter and elemental satisfaction though the bond in tandem with her thoughts and George’s confident pride in himself, and his appreciation of her responses. Hermione pretended she did not feel the foot nudging her own gently, nor the smug grin pressed into her shoulder under the guise of reaching for a dropped napkin. 

Hermione enjoyed the meal, enjoyed the fullness of family life. Even Percy seemed relaxed and happy. Hermione realized as the light faded and candles dotted the table just how much Percy idolized his older brothers and desperately loved all of his siblings. He wanted them all to be proud of him.

She saw, for the first time, just how different they all were from each other. And yet, somehow, they all fit.

She fit, too. She had been around for so long, and included so well, that Hermione found herself surprised to hear her own name mixed in with family stories, found that she could participate in the jokes and the merriment in her own way. Hermione felt a sense of rightness, of wholeness, envelope her. 

When pudding came floating out on a levitating tray, Hermione saw that Bill and Charlie had gotten Ginny her favorite toffee flavored ice cream. Hermione was passing the whipped cream in a chilled bowl to her left when George asked, “Hey, Ginny, would you care for a toffee?”

“Gin, don’t eat anything they give you without checking with me.” Hermione asserted, not even bothering to react emotionally or visually,“I’d not eat that one.”  

“I’m only trying to be nice.” George looked at her askance, “Harsh, ‘Mione.” 

Fred addressed the table, who was laughing and poking fun. “Sharing, you see.”

George pocketed the experimental toffee, “Always shutting down my fun.”

Hermione added a dollop of fudge to her sundae, and passed it along. “You’re not testing products on your sister.”

“Well, I can’t very well test them on you.” George returned, “Your magibiochemistry is strange, you know.”

“Smooth, George.” Charlie deadpanned, accepting the sprinkles Hermione had passed to George, and George passed to Charlie. 

“I’ve told you both five times, design a study, with proper protocols.” Hermione stuck her spoon in her sundae, “Mum already said she’d help you. Design the study, and recruit people under proper channels with the notion of informed consent.”

Other conversations bloomed around them. Hermione and the twins were talking about science again. It hardly was worth listening to them blather on about things, given that the conversations flowed rapidly and oftentimes were impossible to follow, what with the level of technicality and the amount of unfinished unspoken sentences. 

Fred spoke from the both when he announced their hesitations, “But if we tell people what we’re doing, they might take our ideas.”

“Oh, please.” Hermione scoffed, “As if I would let that happen.”

“She is a bit scary.” Ron agreed, mouth full of ice cream, “I wouldn’t dare touch any of her work.”

Hermione took offense to that statement. Why, when there was ever mounting evidence to the contrary, did people find her scary? Aghast, she reminded her friend,“You copy my homework at least twice a week.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Only when you let me, Hermione.”

Hermione ignored the ongoing debate of the merits of various experimental designs, and testing protocols and called to Charlie, “Charlie, I’ve been meaning to ask you about Bizzy, the hatchling you were telling me about in your last letter. Is she still well?”

“Oh, very much so.” He replied, “I forgot to give you some snaps before I had to atte—”

Percy corrected his brother. “Fled to London.”

Charlie looked at the studious man across from him, as Hermione hid a grin.“Excuse me, Mr. I’ve got to go to work at six, when the place doesn’t open until eight.” Charlie returned.

Percy pointed his spoon at his brother, “The markets in Beijing—”

“Are very important to wizarding trade.” Bill interjected, “Can we not talk about work? I left Egypt to not talk about work.”

Hermione listened as the conversation shifted around her. She would never forget this moment, sitting here in the warm summer night, candles dancing on the tables as Crooks chased after moths, with love and laughter all around her. In the fading light, hands slipped into hers, and Hermione knew that tonight was the perfect end to summer. 

* * *

The morning dawned cold and shrouded in the darkness that spoke of the changing seasons. Hermione shrugged on her Weasley sweater over a thin cotton shirt, a pair of muggle jeans, and her hiking boots, a brown leather pair that fit her feet like a second skin.

She helped to edit Mr. Weasley’s fashion choices, and was eating a bowl of cold cereal when Fred trudged into the kitchen, kissed her gently as Hermione wrapped her arms about to siphon off some of his warmth, and stole her tea. 

Hermione rolled her eyes and listened to the cacophony of noise that they were treated to as everyone got ready. Fred drank half of her tea, gave her the mug back, and wandered off to get dressed. Mrs. Weasley bustled into the kitchen and asked Hermione, “Was George just in here? He’s got to get up.”

Hermione shook her head as she rinsed her bowl. “Fred. I’ll go light a fire under George and Ron.”

“Would you mind, dear?” Molly asked, relief plain her voice. “The portkey leaves promptly and it is something of a walk. There’s still so much to do.”

Hermione assured her that she was more than happy to help. She woke up Ron simply by shaking him gently, “Ron, you’re going to miss the Portkey.”

Ron mumbled and rolled over. Hermione sighed, knowing she was going to have to shock him out of the bed. Very determinedly, she leaned down over George, and whispered that it was time to get up. He mumbled her name, and slid a warm arm around her. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Hermione replied, quite liking the happy, sleepy, warm note in his voice. “You’ve got to get up.”

George mumbled something and glanced over at a sleeping Ron. Hermione laughed, and slid her chilly hands along George’s middle. He hissed, and lowered her hand to the curve below her bum. Hermione arched an eyebrow, and laughed, “George, we have to get up.”

“I am!” He returned, letting her go. 

Hermione just bet he was, but there wasn’t much she intended to do about it. 

Ron huffed and sat up as Hermione smoothed out her sweater and stood. “It is too early for you two to be pranking me.” He shuffled out of the bedroom, muttering about nasty people and disgusting pranks. 

“I think you scandalized him.” Hermione posited, pausing only to be properly and gently kissed and wished good morning. “Get dressed.”

“What I want to know, Hermione…” George asked, “Is just when he’s going to figure it out? If there's one thing Fred and I are serious about, it's you.”

“Fred and I have bets down.” Hermione grinned, her heart swelling. “You should get in on that pool. You wouldn’t believe the prize.”

“I can imagine.” George rubbed his eyes, “Flee from my presence, temptress.”

“Alright, I’ll pour your tea.” Hermione sighed a very put upon sigh with a smile, “Just hurry up. Molly’s in a tizzy.” 

* * *

Climbing the Hill wasn’t exactly her idea of a good morning, but at least Lupin Lessons let her arrive to the top in a fairly quick and measured pace. Ron, when he panted to the top, looked at her and the twins, “Oi, what’d spell you use for that?”

“Lupin Lessons, Ron.” Hermione replied archly. 

Fred asked George, “What’s he think?”

“Tactical training is a tea party?” George answered Fred. 

“Bloody hard work!” They answered together. 

Hermione rolled her eyes, and gently informed Ron. “A lot of the root of magical control is physical fitness.” 

Hermione remembered the first weeks of Lupin Lessons. Running her bum off wasn’t her idea of a good time. The drills reminded her too much of the line test at her muggle primary school, or relay races that her uncoordinated body had always failed terribly. Remus hadn’t cared. 

He had made it very clear that it was life and death, and the difference between one pushup and the next might be the breathing control and the muscle endurance that saved their lives. He’d said, though Hermione had not understood the context at the time, that they hadn’t trained hard enough for the First War. There hadn’t been time, and it had cost them dearly.

Hermione understood now that Remus, too, knew about Gideon, Fabian, and Dorcas. She suspected that their deaths, if not their lives, had driven his research. 

And so she and the twins had worked very hard on all fronts.

Hermione could disarm someone in hand-to-hand combat, could duel in close quarters, and far lengths. She could run for miles weighted down with shrunken objects that were essentially the weight of one of the twins. She understood that she was being trained to get them out of the firing line if they went down and she was cut off from magic, just as they were doing for her and each other. 

It hadn’t done much for Hermione’s figure, which she lamented. There had to be magic behind it, because no one could move like she did, and look like she did, with her hips and thighs and curves. It wasn’t that she was grossly overweight, it was only that her set point refused to budge, much to her consternation. 

Fred and George fell into place at her shoulder, as they met up with the Diggory family and set off.

At the camp, Hermione found herself amazed. She wondered if perhaps this was how George had first felt walking into Woolworth’s, or what it had been like for Fred to visit the car wash. Everywhere she saw there was wizarding society, bright and alive. There were tiny children, far younger than any she had seen, and witches and wizards from the world over, all with different ways of being. 

Setting up the muggle tent wasn’t the easiest thing she had ever done. She reminded herself to ask Remus for a bit of survivalist training. She couldn’t even pitch a tent. There may come a time, she reasoned, that going off-grid was totally critical. She helped Mr. Weasley to light a match, and set up the cooking fire before wandering around the camp with Harry and Ron. 

When she returned, Percy was kissing his boss’s arse, and Ludo Bagman was sauntering around. When the twins bet their entire summer’s worth of takings, Hermione inwardly sighed. Did anyone stop and say, ‘Oi, Hermione, love, what d’you think?’ 

No, no they didn’t. However, that didn’t mean that she wasn’t five steps ahead of them. Hermione made note of their bet in their ledger book as Ludo gave his consent. It was as simple as that, and so Hermione said nothing of their foolhardy natures.

What would they do without her? You didn’t take a man like that at his word, no matter what his position. Honestly, boys were so gullible. 

* * *

Hermione was excited to see the Veelas. Fred and George snickered under their breath at Harry and Ron’s reactions to the ethereally beautiful creatures. They grabbed onto Ron and shoved him into his seat, mashing down his hair in a fraternal way. 

Hermione took care of Harry, who had seats in the box with his parents. Sirius spent 95% of the match sneering at Mr. Malfoy.

It was just in time to see the vanishing gold tossed out by the Leprechauns. No one who had been in DADA last year was particularly surprised by it, but it was fun all the same to toss up faux-money and let it rain down upon you. Provided, of course, that one didn’t let the gold hit them on the way down before it vanished. 

For Hermione, the best time of the match was not seeing Krum catch the snitch, or watching Ireland win. No, the best part of the match was watching Fred and George jump up and down screaming and jostling her and their brothers. They had just doubled their takings for the entire summer. Though gambling made her slightly uneasy, this outcome was rather worth it.

Just this once, of course.

Hermione got a thrill when she gently disappointed them. They were looking at Mr. Bagman with expectation, and Hermione interjected, having missed the conversation that was ongoing between the twins and Ludo as the Malfoy's had taken themselves off. “That’s not necessary, Mr. Bagman.”

“My dear girl, a bet’s a bet.” He winked showily at her, “My honor is at stake. I must pay my forfeit.” 

“It’s been paid, sir.” Hermione watched as he blanched, “You see, I made note of the bet in the ledger, and when you affirmed your assent, it debited the amount from your vault without delay.” 

Bagman’s color rose, “Of course, of course.” He seemed at a total loss. Hermione explained that this bit of magic was very common at Gringott’s, though it was not in widespread use by the average witch or wizard. It helped to know a cultural attache there, in truth. Knarledmouth was a huge source of information in managing to set up the business. Automatic payments and debits saved her a lot of work.  

“Of course, the joke wand is yours to keep.” Hermione assured him, understanding his dislike of loss. “If you like it, we’d be happy to send you an array of products. Thank you, really, for supporting the startup. The money will not be wasted.”

“With someone as shrewd as you at the helm, I should say not!” He laughed uneasily.  

When Bagman had bustled off with the various Bulgarian dignitaries, Mr. Weasley looked to his sons, “Let this be a lesson, gentlemen. Never gamble what you are afraid to lose.” 

Fred and George looked at her, then, and realized their oversight. It washed over the faces in identical waves of horror. “Hermione—”

“Just thank me for not letting us lose everything because you lot lost your heads.” Hermione absolved them. “Next time you intend to alter the five year plan, I’d like to be included, if you please.” Hermione met their eyes, “I’m invested in this, too, you know.” 

They sobered and held her for a long second. 

Ron blurted, "Do you mean to tell me that Hermione is working for your Wheezes?" 

The twins looked at their brother and rolled their eyes before leaving the box, Ron pestering the whole way down. 

* * *

 

After that emotional upheaval, they returned to the tents for a bit of goodnatured merrymaking. After Mr. Weasley levitated Ginny to bed and had gone to change his own clothes, Hermione felt something shift in the air around her. With telling look at the twins, and a vague gesture for everyone else, she went outside and looked at the growing crowds. 

There were tents mowed down and tents on fire, food overturned. The tenor of the crowd had shifted from a joyous celebration to that of a full on riot. In the distance, Hermione saw people floating in the air, being abused and manipulated through magic. 

Hermione hastened back inside, looked at everyone, and said, “It’s a riot. Muggle baiting.”

She was instantly calm. Hermione shrugged on a coat as Bill and Charlie began to doubt her. Hermione did not have time for this, so she ignored them, tucking up her hair in a hasty topknot as Fred and George slid on their boots and coats. 

It was Ron who said, “You need to listen to Hermione.” With that, he stood, and went to get his sister. Charlie slipped out of the room to alert his father and find Percy, who was likely getting ready to turn in. 

“They’ve got muggles, we need to work fast.” Hermione  outlined what she had seen, and by that time, Mr. Weasley came bustling out of the room, wand drawn. He demanded that they all go into the woods. 

He was confident in the Ministry. They could not leave this in the Ministry's incapable hands. All she had seen over the lsat few years told her they were not to be trusted.

Ginny grabbed Ron's hand. Harry followed with a look to Hermione, believing she would bring the twins along. Just as soon as the younger ones were out of earshot, Hermione pulled out her wand. 

Mr. Weasley looked at them as though they had lost their minds. Fred was rolling up his sleeves, and cuffing them tightly. 

George shook his head, unable to run with the children and those unwilling and unable to fight. They were a steady stream past their site on the way into the woods. “Dad, this is what we’ve trained for.”

“We’re going.” Fred affirmed, as Hermione warded the whole site to protect it from the damage she saw all around them. “Do we have your support?”

Hermione took one glance at the man she loved as a father and set off running. 

Hermione did not hear Mr. Weasley’s reply. She was already racing towards the crowd against the flow of traffic under the Roberts family.

Hermione was angry when she saw the incompetence of the aurors.

The Ministry wizards were too scared to actually do anything. They wouldn’t even use suppressive fire to force the cloaked wizards to keep their heads down. Hermione saw this as a grave failing. 

With a single glance back at the twins, Hermione knew that they were all on the same page. 

The boys went around the crowd as  it converged, cutting through the edge of the woods. There were too many robed wizards to really come up with a plan to help the family escape. There was no way to get them down silently and quickly. 

What they needed to do, one way or another, was corner the whole lot of these robed and masked men and women. Carefully, Hermione put up a force field, and made it smaller and smaller as she advanced, forcing those who might have joined the throng to reconsider. 

In thinning the crowd out with this sort of wards, she was giving the aurors a space they would feel more comfortable in, and would reduce onlooker involvement and potential casualties. 

The twins were approaching from the rear, through the jeering crowd, using the wards Hermione had begun to thin the crowd. Hermione saw it working, saw a few clusters of people wander away. 

Yet more followed. Hermione trained her eyes on the men she fully believed to be Death Eaters, out in the open. 

 Hermione saw one masked figure, with a hand signal from his fellow attackers. This was the information she needed to prevent casualties. 

Hermione knew that she had to follow this one Death Eater, come what may. She raced off, knowing that if her wards held, so much the better. At least they would help disperse the crowds and thin out the potential for trampling and escalation. 

Hermione raced into the woods, her footfalls silent and her wand dark. Her feet would have thudded on the dark forrest floor if not for the spell preventing sound. She hauled breath into her lungs, keeping her eyes peeled, and her ears perked in the darkness. 

She heard rustling through the trees, both that of the twins that were flanking her, and the man they were pursuing. Why would someone trying to carry out a mission run into the crowd? 

Unless he planned to kill people who were not resisting, people who just trying to protect the vulnerable amongst them. Hermione's muscles clenched with the force of her effort to follow this man through the darkness.

She threw up as many wards as she could, even as she could not see the breadth and depth of the crowd. She threw up so barriers, from far off that her legs trembled with the force of this feat of magic. She pulled deeply on the bond to do everything she could to protect the innocent and the vulnerable hiding in the woods.

He was racing ever closer to the densest part of the thicket within the woods, where most of the young children had been sent. Hermione thought of the small children she'd seen playing with crackers earlier, seen riding on their parent's shoulders, and knew that there would never, never, never, be another Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom or Susan Bones, not if there was breath in her body.

She silently chanted protective incantations, firing off as many spells as she could think of in this moment. 

_Protect those who are innocent by my power pure and free._ _Shield them from harm and darkness all. Let those who seek them to harm fall. So mote it be._

Hermione couldn't aim well enough to stun them in the back, and she was not about to kill first and ask questions later. She knew at present that the Death Eaters weren't acknowledged, and that killing a man in a robe would be a one way ticket to the Kiss, even if she knew and everyone knew what he was, and what risk they were under. She knew Fudge wouldn't care. 

She was inches from the crowd spotting the man, inches from being able to reach out and grab the combatant by the cloak. She reached out and threw her weight into a thrust, hoping that she would fly through the air just enough to jump and roll the person onto the ground, and pin them. If she could just get her hand on them...

But of course, when she jumped, she did not take into account the thick underbrush. As she reached out, her foot caught in a tree's root. Hermione went thudding to the ground, silently via magic, as a voice cried out.

The voice of the person that she had almost apprehended hissed as he apparated, “Morsmordre!” 

The light exploded above her as her face hit the dirt with an uncomfortable thud. Just feet ahead, she heard the crowd screaming and running, mothers screaming their children's names and children screaming for their mothers.

Her wand flew across the ground. She had stumbled, it seemed, upon Harry, Ron, and Ginny. They hadn’t seen her yet, but she could see them in the eerie glow. Harry was staring up in the sky.  

Behind her, two strong arms grasped her gently and set her on her feet. “I—” Hermione wanted to scream, “I was three feet away from…”

The green light emanated from the sky above them, illuminating the twins and their expressions as they saw the Dark Mark floating in the air above them. George breathed, “We thinned the crowd somewhat and the aurors were moving in when we followed.” 

Hermione summoned her wand. The Roberts family might be safe, and she was glad of it. However, she knew, looking at that sick skull floating in the sky just before the woods filled with aurors, that they were the only people here who were safe. The rest, as intended, were awash in fear and terror not felt for over thirteen years. 

Fred looked up at the sky and cursed.

It was a message from Voldemort, one Hermione had expected and been waiting for, one that she would accept. The war, with one spell fired, had begun. Enemy combatants had been identified, and the gauntlet had been thrown. As her wand slipped back into her hand, Hermione knew that while they had lost this battle, they would not lose the war. 

Looking over at her friends, who were now rushing towards her and Fred and George, Hermione knew there was no other choice. Too many innocent lives were at stake.

* * *

 So late that night that it was very nearly morning, Hermione was still shaking. "I could have gotten him, if I had--"

She broke off, bustling into the kitchen to Bill and Charlie's injuries, unwilling to tell the everything. She was humming and thrumming with magic. She might as well use some of it for something. She looked to Bill, "May I?"

He looked skeptical. He was clutching old bedsheets to a very bloody arm. 

Hermione understood his hesitation. She did her best to reassure him, "Look, both Fred and George have broken bones and nearly sliced arteries. I've healed them. Just let me have a look, okay?"

Hermione watched as Bill lowered the sheet with a shaking hand.

She looked to him, "This might feel..." Hermione searched for words as she surveyed the wound. It was clearly a slicing hex that had hit him in a bad spot. Sinew and fat glistened under the split skin, blood seeping to the surface. "A bit alien to you. But I promise I won't hurt you." 

He nodded.

Hermione healed him as quickly as possible, knowing that her magic probably wasn't the most comfortable force in his body. Bill hissed as the slice in his body healed from the inside out without scarring, and panted when Hermione removed her hand from his shoulder. 

Hermione apologized. "You'll let me know if you want a potion? I could try to take your pain, but it likely would be uncomfortable."

He smiled a smile that was more of a grimace. "You healed the pulled tendon in my back and the burn on my leg, Hermione."

Hermione did not acknowledge the confusion in his voice, and healed Percy's nose with a quick pop of magic, and Charlie's gash with a brush of her hand. Their injuries were more minor. 

Fred and George were tending to a shaken Ginny, Ron, and Harry. They were unharmed, but confused. Mr. Weasley was gently explaining in the front room about Dark Marks and the First War, insofar as it pertained to what they had seen. Hermione wished that Remus hadn't shredded their ignorance over the last year. 

Even so, she had tried to think of the men tonight as masked men, or robed men. But she knew they were Death Eaters. How could she not? 

Hermione felt, in this moment, a real sense of seperation from Ron and Ginny and even Harry. 

Remus had mentioned wanted to read Harry in, but Hermione knew it wasn't time. He needed as much as time as possible. Hermione knew this in her soul. He would face enough in time, and she felt it her right and her duty to shield him as best she could. She didn't know why she felt so very maternal towards a friend, only that she did. Anyone who came at Harry would have to come at her first. 

Never before had she felt more like a leader who had let them down. They were her friends, her family, but in the end she had a chance to protect them. 

And she hadn't. She had failed. 

Unbidden, a glass on the table shattered. Hermione looked sheepishly at the men gathered around the small table as shrapnel flew around them. Hermione had too much magic too close to the surface, and for some reason, she couldn't disperse it evenly. A wave of magical energy that felt of warmth radiated out from her. "Sorry." 

Fred and George must have felt it, because George came through into the small kitchen just as Fred came inside, locking and warding the door behind him. "The other tent's down." 

Hermione felt, literally felt, their auras snapping back together like jigsaw puzzles. There was an audible sound that seemed to startle everyone who did not know what it was. Judging by his expression, Bill saw it, too. 

Gently, Hermione held the gazes. "I should have gotten him."

George shook his head.

Fred simply replied, "You will. We will." 

"But--" Hermione shook her head, unwilling to rehash the whole thing. Magic zinged out, Hermione sighed and tried to reintegrate the magic into the atmosphere around her. 

She sighed as George's fingers ghosted along the inside of her elbow. Hermione looked at him as she tilted her head towards Fred. "There's nothing to do but get some rest."

Hermione sent the bowl of bloody water into the basin, glad that she controlled it well enough to do so without sloshing. She rubbed her temples. This excess magic was exacerbating her headache. 

"We'll all feel better tomorrow, love." Fred promised, allowing that he was going to get things sorted. He seemed to feel better taking care of tasks. 

Hermione felt George siphoning off some of that excess magic, pulling it into himself. Hermione's eyes fluttered closed. 

From down the hallway, Hermione heard the thunks that came with a bed on a wooden frame being expanded. 

Bill looked at them, and she knew he was seeing their auras, and knew what he was seeing and thinking. "Don't do anything stupid."

Hermione huffed. "Yes, because an influx of Death Eaters and a riot that crushed and trampled three people to death just screams, 'Fuck me, please.'" 

Hermione didn't even appreciate the shocked looks on Charlie or Bill's faces, not to mention Percy's own incredulity. Hermione could read their thoughts, plain on their faces.

"Ginny's going to be on the trundle." She further added, her tone sarcastic, "But you know, of course a relationship that de-escalated a riot and set up protective wards around a few hundred thousand innocent men, women, and children before more people died is just about orgasms, Bill." 

With that, she stopped off to bed. As she went down the narrow corridor, she heard George say something sharply. 

* * *

 

Later, Ginny's snores reverberating in her ears, Hermione realized something. She thought about the garden at the Burrow, and was so glad that the last night she had spent untainted by this reality had been so peaceful and perfect and beautiful. 

Wrapped in Fred and George's warm embraces, Hermione was glad to know that the last night of her childhood had been so perfect. She took solace in it because her childhood was now over. 

She was glad it had ended that way. It was better than believing her childhood had ended in the moment that she had realized that they three were the only things standing between their harsh reality and yet more death. 

What would have happened, she wondered, if they hadn't thinned the crowd and put up those wards? The question haunted her dreams, dreams that glowed with a sickly green light. 


	8. 1994-1995 School Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fourth Year/Sixth Year. 
> 
> I made some larger changes to this one, because there's no way RJL would let his kid compete. Questions, comments, concerns are welcomed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I quoted GoF and Rosa Luxemburg.

Over the last few weeks of the summer, Hermione had very carefully planned a very single-minded fourth year. She’d gotten all of her ducks in a row to enable her to do so. She’d ensured they had a competent DADA professor, gotten the boys through their OWLs, worked through her own fourth year with good marks, and survived the summer. So, really, apart from the war escalating on her doorstep, she’d been rather hoping for a fourth year focused on progress and not putting off the inevitability of her death. 

Her biggest concerns up to this moment had been balancing her schoolwork with her extra responsibilities, and also fitting in the occasional private moment with the gentlemen in her life. They had boarded the train, and found their customary compartment. Up until Remus’s arrival, they had been discussing a name for her house elf liberation campaign. Hermione was rather fond of The House Elf Liberation Front, but it was a mouthful to say and didn’t much lend itself to an acronym. 

Moments before Remus arrived, she was scribbling on parchment as Fred read the latest issue of _Charms Compendium,_ the academic journal that published research findings on the subject. George was playing with Crooky, largely because he was a pushover and the feline knew it. Hermione circled the words she had most recently written three times, and declared, “Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.”

“Spew?” George queried, his brows knitting together. 

“S.P.E.W.” Hermione corrected, reading out her mission statement, “ _Our short-term aims are to secure house-elves fair wages and working conditions. Our long-term aims include changing the law about non-wand use, and trying to get an elf into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, because they're shockingly underrepresented.”_

“Most elves are happy, but those that don’t move don’t notice their chains.” Fred noted, “Raise hell, Hermione.”

“We’ll make up badges for you.” George offered, “Really, it’s a good business deal.”

“I’ll give you two sickles a badge.” Hermione offered, thinking that quite fair. 

Fred and George shared a look as Crooks batted at George’s hand for a continuation of his ministrations. 

“Stick the logo on the back and we’ll call it even.” Fred spoke for the both of them. “Do you have a logo for S.P.E.W?”

“Two minutes ago I didn’t even have a name!” Hermione laughed, “But if I make you lifetime members, will you two make me one? Something that makes you think of Emmaline Parkhurst. Please?”

“Shocking!” Fred cried, looking over his journal, “Just shocking, George, old bean—”

“Shocking nepotism.” George agreed, equally as supercilious and wonderful, “My good man, have these women seeking equality no shame? Next she’ll be throwing rocks through the windows of the Great Hall and hiking her skirts about her knees in protest.”

Hermione laughed.

“We’ll make you your logo, you shameless rabble rouser.” George sobered, earning himself a thank you and a gentle kiss. 

“But let us know if we’re expected to hunger strike.” Fred asked, pressing his question against her lips, “So we can overeat for a few days beforehand.”

“You’re a regular Marion Wallace-Dunlop.” Hermione deadpanned, turning back to her work. 

The compartment door slid open and Remus J. Lupin, returning DADA professor, entered. His own singleminded agenda blew up her plans for a year focused on social justice. 

Most of her daydreams of moments planning political reform together in the Room of Requirement had evaporated by the time Remus continued, “Training, my favorite magical triad, continues. Three days a week, same time, same place. I suggest you lot get some sleep tonight.” 

Hermione sighed. “I’m also going to be interview all the house elves at Hogwarts this year. I’m doing research into their lived experiences to make a case for equality based on their goals. So could we agree to a fixed schedule?”

They hammered a workable timetable out as they journeyed north on the Express. Training would be Tuesdays, Thursdays, and unfortunately, Saturdays. In addition, they were expected to keep up their level of fitness. Hermione shared a look with George and Fred. This year was going to be full of work, but at least no one had tried to kill them as yet. 

As Hermione turned to her S.P.E.W notes with Crooksy on her lap and Susan in her hair, she was almost excited to have a year that would enable her to focus on her project. After really getting to know Kreacher over the years, it wasn’t so easy to say that freedom for elves was as simple as granting them freedom and sending them on their way. Winky, horribly treated by her boss but largely not aware of the way she was used and abused, added another layer of complexity to the whole thing. Dobby was also an interesting case, to be sure. All of this said that her quest to be an advocate meant that she needed to lean in and be an ally for each elf, meaning that research was required. 

After the Cup, it was clear to her that she had to do something. She could not believe how Winky had been treated and blamed for the Dark Mark, after having been found with Harry’s wand. Hermione was determined to exonerate her. Winky would not pay the price, not when she was a victim, made even more so by her lack of rights under the law. Hermione was determined to stand with all magical creatures as she stood with people with lycanthropy.  

She had mentioned an idea to knit enough hats and leave them about in the Tower. Sirius had laughed at her, and told her that the only thing that might do would leave no one to clean the Tower. The elves would be too angry, too affronted, to come there. Alienating them was the opposite of her entire goal.

Hermione had confirmed this with Kreacher, the most direct elf she knew, Winky, the most hardline traditionalist, and Dobby, the only free elf she knew. She did not bother asking the kitchen elves she had come to know over the years when the general consensus was so uniform. 

Hermione had realized that the elves had no framework for freedom, no language to articulate their rights. Hermione absentmindedly picked through the Every Flavor Beans, and planned out her year. By the end of the year, she intended to produce a report for publication outlining the present conditions of the house elves, and developing a space wherein they could speak for themselves. Hermione knew that there was no way to speak for the house elves. She had to speak with them, and use her position to help them build their own platform. 

* * *

Hermione carried on with her goals, focusing on Elven rights and advocacy right through Dumbledore’s announcement. The TriWizard was all well and good, and it would be nice to meet the students of Beauxbatons to work on her French and perhaps pick up some Bulgarian, but privately she was glad that there would be less demands on the twins insofar as quidditch, given that school and WWW took up so much of their time. 

She did not say this to them, though, because that would be cruel and unfair to their interests and love of the support. Instead, she patted their hands and agreed that no quidditch was just dreadful. She could empathize with being unable to do something she loved upon the basis of circumstance and was able to put herself in their shoes and be suitably supportive. 

That was, until they began going on about entering. “We’ll be seventeen in April!” and “Surely a few months—”

Hermione and hauled them out of the Great Hall as people began to stare. She shoved them into an alcove under the stairs. They didn’t even notice her pulling the curtain closed and warding the small space. They were too busy going on about aging potions and polyjuice. Hermione waited until they realized they weren’t walking anymore, and puttered out, staring at her.

“We promised your mother.” Hermione reminded them, “That we would not out the bond while we were here.” 

That had been their concession to Molly. Having only just learned about Dorcas, Gideon, and Fabian, it was a promise Hermione had felt honor bound to make, even if she herself didn’t really relish it. After learning of the Dark Mark’s appearance, Molly was terrified and they would have promised her the moon and stars to settle her fears. 

“Yes, and see, George is—” Fred hastened, ready to launch into the same excitable rant about age lines and potions and workarounds. 

George explained, nearly breathless with his eagerness. “Planning to—”

“Planning to use an aging potion to cross an age line that not every portion of your magical core can or will cross. Planning to risk exposing triadic magic under high stress situations. Planning to drag me into this without my consent.” Hermione spoke, watching as she put a pinprick in their ever swelling bubble of  hopeful schemes. 

She felt bad about it, but the truth was the truth, and they needed to hear it from her before something really bad happened. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go along with this. This is one time you two are on your own, and you have to decide if you think the money and the fame and the glory for one of you is worth putting the other two at risk.” 

“Well, of course it isn’t!” George insisted. 

“But the money, Kitten.” Fred implored, “Think of what that money could do.” 

“I’d rather have you both safe with me than all the money in the world.” Hermione reminded them, knowing full well they both felt the same way, “Besides, we nearly made a thousand galleons this summer. We’ll beat it next year.”

“You’re determined to make us mature people—” Fred began, looking at her as though he had never seen her before but loved her anyway. 

George’s own disgust was just as fond, as though the things he mentioned were abhorrent but she wasn’t anything of the sort. “Who think about actions and consequences and risks and rewards, aren’t you?”

“Because really…” Fred mused, “You could go into business and make a killing.”

“We could make a quill!” George posited, “That when you use it to write out a problem it makes one of those—”

“Chart things that—” Fred agreed with his twin, looking at her for the term they’d forgotten. 

“A decision matrix.” Hermione cut in, “And no, I’m not determined to make either of you be anything. I just want to keep you both around for the foreseeable future.“

Fred slanted a glance toward her, teasing and mirthful.“See, George, knew she loves us.”

George returned the same knowing glance.“Can’t live without us.” 

Fred hammed it up. “Yearns—”

“Oh, shut up.” Hermione flounced away, half thrilled to have made a grand exit, and half disappointed that they didn’t come after her, pull her back in the alcove, and kiss her senseless. 

* * *

Hermione spent most evenings in the kitchen, talking to the elves. She was sometimes allowed to help, to shell peas and peel carrots, if she were lucky. In reaching out to them, Hermione learned so much of their lives. They cleaned at night, preferring not to be seen by students. For many elves, serving the students was rather like having their own families. Some elves had even followed the babies they loved to Hogwarts, as was the case with several elves. 

Hermione bit her tongue a great many times. She wanted to talk about enslavement about subjugation. Instead, she listened. She listened. She heard about their own families, the marriages between house elves that weren’t legally recognized, and the fact that they had to have permission to reproduce. There was many an elf who wanted to have a child, but were unable to obtain consent from the head of their magical source. 

It made Hermione rage. “Imagine!” She ranted to the only people who cared to listen as they ran around the lake, feet pounding in the hard packed grass. “Not being able to get married to someone you love because some idiot says you can’t! Not being able to have a child because some fool says so!” 

Hermione made quick notes on researching these limitations. She recorded every formal interview and took notes when she was able. It humbled her to know that house elves had a culture and belief systems. She had never even thought to ask, and nobody had ever told her that house elves were members of a broad community with a plethora of issues they faced. Most were created and exacerbated by magical people, and Hermione was determined to shine her light on the issues, in the hopes that she would soon find herself stepping back into a supportive role as the elves themselves did the work. 

“Unless you’re discussing a tactical plan to overcoming the obstacles,” Remus called out in the waning summer evening, “I don’t want to hear you wasting breath with talking. If you can rant, you’re not running.” 

Hermione scowled, and continued onward. This training schedule was brutal in comparison to last year. They ran. They swam. They dueled until they wanted to drop, and then dueled yet more. The term had truly only just begun, but they were being put through the paces. When they had the unmitigated gall to question this system, Remus had only grinned in that way of his and retorted, “If you had kept up over the summer, you wouldn’t be feeling so poorly now.” 

At the end of the night, Hermione packed her school bag with aching muscles, scalded herself in a hot shower, and trudged to her bed. She had a full course load in the morning, along with the continuation of her self-paced work. When she was yanking down her covers with arms covered in liniment, Lavender stared at her. 

“Are you alright, Hermione?” Lavender seemed genuinely concerned. Hermione wondered how the patterns of her life had sailed right over their heads for the last year. 

Still, she appreciated the genuine sentiment in her roommate’s voice. “I’m fine. I guess lifting all the grimoires and tomes in the library isn’t for the faint-hearted.” 

Lavender looked uncertain. “You should hang out with us more. You could do with some girl time.” 

Hermione smiled. “That’s sweet.” She promised to consider it, and fell into a dreamless sleep. 

* * *

Remus cast the Cruciatus Curse, and the spider began to writhe. Hermione couldn’t stand by this and let it happen. It was not just, it served no good. Before she knew what she was about, barely a second after the poor spider began to suffer, she was on her feet.

“Stop it!” Hermione yelled at her teacher and mentor in a way that was more suited to Lupin Lessons than the classroom, “You’re hurting it! Stop!” 

The class stared, looking at her and at each other, even while Ron was reaching out for her.  

Remus released the curse, looking at her as though he was hurt. “It’s a button that’s been transfigured into a spider. I don’t practice animal cruelty.”

“It must feel something!” Hermione cried, watching the poor spider twitch and shake its tiny limbs as its body began to skitter painfully around the desk, “It’s breathing! It moves! Can’t you all see?”

“It’s magic.” Remus replied gently, “It’s no more alive than my desk.” 

Hermione sent a hidden wave of healing magic at the button cum spider anyway, with the merest twitch of her pinky. The spider, button though it was, seemed to be eased. She knew Remus noticed what she had done, because he looked at her sharply, with a scolding, surprised glance on his face. 

Remus went back to teaching. Every so often, he would look to her and look at the transfigured spider he was keeping in the jar. It was no shock to her that, when she came to the front of the class for one reason or another, he made her switch the poor creature back to the button it had once been and back again. 

Hermione knew then, that tonight at Lupin Lessons, she would be working with the unforgivables. It wasn’t what she wanted to do, but she knew that she would have no choice. The look that Remus sent her as the magically transfigured spider coo’d in her direction after her fourth time healing it was enough of a tell.  

That night, Remus was dispassionate, even as Hermione knew he felt a great deal. He requested that they all have a sit down, which Hermione found to be more grueling than beep tests. Remus stared at them for a long moment before engaging them, leaving Hermione to explain in her own words what had happened in class. 

When she finished, his voice was gentle.“Do you think, Hermione, that your opponents will stop to consider the emotions of others? Do you think they feel empathy?”

Hermione knew that the Death Eaters who had hurt the Roberts family and implicated Winky had no empathy. She did not want to be like them. 

Hermione looked to Remus as she sat on the tufted sofa across from him. She was pressed thigh to thigh with Fred, who was gently holding her hand, while George’s arm was around her waist. These moments were some of the few that they could be who they were without subterfuge, and Hermione lived for those places, spaces, and times. “My empathy makes me a better witch, a better person.”

“That may be, but never forget that your empathy and your compassion is a gift.” Remus replied, pushing to his feet, “Transfigure the button. I know you have it.”

“You’re supposed to be teaching us to defend people!” Hermione cried, feeling the bond rise up to support her, even as her boys held her. “To hurt, to kill, to maim, makes us no better than Voldemort, no better than the piles of dung that call him master.” 

Fred looked toward their mentor and squeezed her hand. “Remus—”

“Maybe…” George’s own expression was hesitant as he held her tighter. It was then that Hermione realized they were siphoning off the magic that was pouring off of her, pulling it into themselves, keeping the bond steady and her grounded. It was further proof that their bond was strong and vibrant, a good thing, a right thing, a blessed thing. 

“Am I talking to you two?” Remus shot back, “Are you always going to be there to face reality in her stead? If not, I suggest you both stand down.”   

George and Fred held Remus’s gaze, but fell silent. 

“What happens, Hermione, when you must kill to defend those you love? Those you are sworn by sacred vow to protect?” Remus asked her, “Is your hesitation worth your life? Worth theirs? Because I tell you now, miss, I tell you now that one breath may be all that stands between you and oblivion.”

Hermione looked around the comfortable common room that the Room had morphed into upon their entry. She felt the light within her flicker with an onslaught of support, of love. “I…”

“You do not have the luxury of hesitation!” Remus insisted, demanding her attention. 

Hermione looked directly at him as he sighed, “Forgive me, Hermione, but I have promised you the truth. I am sorry, but we’ve got to start somewhere.” After a moment, he gave her no out, “Transfigure the button.” 

Hermione did. She knew that that choice stole a bit of her humanity, a piece of her innocence, but she did it. She shook as Remus began to lecture about double spells. She was rock steady when he showed them how to go about firing spells until the person on the other side went down, and stayed down. Soon, he said, it would look like they were all firing two spells quickly, without time to pause and focus on their targets. Soon, he promised, fighting to kill would be understood as fighting to survive. 

She did not shake when he set up targets and insisted they practiced, not to stun, not to disarm, not to survive, but to kill. Hermione couldn’t look the lifeless enchanted dummies in their false eyes, nor could she stop protecting the transfigured spider in her pocket. The magical backlash and recoil on Unforgivables made her arms ache.  

When she got back to the common room, she held Susan for the longest time, silently begging forgiveness and forcing herself not to cry. Fred looked at her with longing, as though he ached to hold her as much as she ached to hold him. George found thirty-seven different reasons to draw her into conversation, apology and pleading in his voice. 

They needed each other, in those moments. And yet, a promise they had made held them back. Never did Hermione want to out them so badly, not even when girls had flirted with her boys right in front of her. That she could bear, but this, this was agonizing. Finally, seeing no other recourse, she went to bed and tried to curl into the bond. 

It wasn’t easy. Every time she closed her eyes that night, she saw not a transfigured button or an enchanted dummy, but Susan seconds before a light hit her. She slept little, even as the bond pulled on her, leaving the love and comfort she tried to give and receive feeling a bit empty in her cold bed. 

The next day, she skipped out on lunch to visit Remus, informing her friends generally as a way to tell the boys sitting on each side of her. She was cognizant of every glance, every joke, every word, every touch between them this year in a way that she had never been before. Remus, in any case, was evidently not surprised to see her. She had been up all night, and from the look on her mentor and professor’s face, he knew this fact well.

He made no bones about feeding her. She accepted the tea and biscuits he offered. He was a man of great compassion, and pushing her wasn’t easy for him. She knew this, and she loved him for it. 

Hermione fingered the button in her pocket, holding his gaze across his desk. “Those vows you mentioned last night?” 

“Yes.” Remus affirmed that he knew of that which they were speaking. 

Hermione explained, “I made those out of love to Fred and to George. I was eleven, and it wasn’t a choice. I just remember changing into my robes on the train and knowing that I would always be in their corner and they would always be in mine.”

Hermione knew as well as he did that that was really all that was needed to seal an unconscious bond. The choice was so elemental that it wasn’t a choice as such. It was a knowing that you had made your choice. 

“I am sorry, Hermione.” Remus apologized, truth in his eyes, “You never had a choice. None of you did.”

“But you see?” Hermione revealed the thoughts that had come to her in the dark of night, “We did and we do. We choose to go along through life one another. Even if we snapped our wands, that wouldn’t change.”

“Wouldn’t it?” Remus challenged her with the lift of his expressive brows. 

Hermione knew the truth. She would stand with her boys, and they with her, magic or no magic, triadic magic, or muggle lives of mundane activity, “No.”

“That love you feel?” Remus ventured, “Your bond? Hermione, where do you think your earth magics come from? You cannot have such a profound love without tough choices. You would not have the love you three share without the mission you carry in your souls.”

“Do you mean to say that—” Hermione’s voice was ice as she gripped her mug, “Without this bond, that Fred and George would never have looked twice at me?”

“No.” Remus assured her, “Who can say what person you’d each be without the bond? Perhaps you would be more stubborn, more binary in your thinking, and far less mature. Perhaps you would be as you are.” He quirked a smile, “Perhaps you would be vastly enlightened and live in harmony with all the earth.”

Hermione snorted. She could work in harmony with the earth’s energy, its magic, but its populations were another matter. She did not think this would change. 

Remus bit into a biscuit as steam from his teacup clouded his spectacles. “My point, Hermione, is only that we cannot change the circumstances in which we live to such a degree that we can keep all the good with none of the challenges.”

Hermione bit into her biscuit. She had much to consider. 

* * *

Hermione had never seen Harry look so terrified or Remus look so angry. When Dumbledore announced Harry’s name on the fourth slip of paper, Remus shook his head and spoke into the shocked and silent void. “No.” 

That was all he said. “No.” Hermione saw at once that Harry had nothing to do with this bizarre circumstance, and she mashed her foot on Ron’s just as he went to speak. He glared, but at least he wised up enough to close his mouth. 

George’s hand was on her knee, drawing out her surface magics, rubbing soothing circles on the soft flesh there over her tights. In tandem, Fred wrapped his calf around hers, a hidden gesture of support denied them. Hermione wanted so badly to hold their hands openly, to lean against them, to make plain her pride in them. She wanted mostly to let them take the credit for the S.P.E.W. badges she was now giving away. 

“I didn’t!” Harry cried, “I…”

Dumbledore looked upon Harry. “Well, of course you didn’t. You could not.” 

Hermione’s blood boiled, and she saw the pumpkin juice in her goblet start to steam, tiny bubbles rising up along the rim of the cup. She focused her energy there. How dare Dumbledore think so little of Harry, think so little of his honor and his honesty? How dare he say that the only reason he believed him was because he did not think Harry clever enough to outwit the Goblet?

Remus came to his point again, “Harry will not be competing.”

Bagman spoke, “But the rules clearly state—”

“Hang the rules!” Remus insisted, anger rising to the fore. After a second, he calmed, and Hermione knew that calm to be lethal. “He is my child, I am his father, and I have said he is not competing. He doesn’t want to compete. He is going to sit down, eat his dinner, and clap very nicely for his friends and comrades and that is the end of it.”

Harry looked profoundly grateful to his Moony. Hermione understood it. After all, previous entrants had died. Harry really didn’t, despite their brushes with death, have a death wish. Granted, Hermione, George, and Fred had done quite a lot to shield him.

Dumbledore smiled, “Rules are made to be broken, hmm?” He addressed the school, “Let it be known that Mr. Potter was clearly as shocked as we all were. Nothing more need be said on the matter.” 

Bagman looked furious, but Harry sat down and ate his potatoes, relief evident with every shuddering breath he drew. Later, the rumor mill around the school was that someone had tried to prank Harry, though it was badly done. All fingers were pointed at Slytherin. Hufflepuff was oddly supportive of Harry. 

Hermione’s resentment of Dumbledore grew. When the Champions from other schools arrived, Dumbledore did nothing to integrate the houses. Drumstrang aligned itself with Slytherin, and Beauxbatons aligned itself with Ravenclaw. Naturally, this led to even less school unity. He had a duty and an obligation to break these molds, but he did nothing. 

* * *

Even with the new arrivals, life continued on in many ways for Hermione. She tended to her schoolwork, interviewed elves that were slowly opening up to her, and worked on testing for various products and orders. Hermione had no problem with the sales, as the products were mostly harmless and didn’t interfere with educational goals. The school was tense enough that a few harmless pranks spoke to the greater good that Dumbledore went on about when he was challenged or questioned. 

Hermione’s plans for her 15th birthday were largely low-key. Her roommates demanded they be allowed to fix her hair. Reluctantly, Hermione let them. She was surprised to find that they enhanced her curls and pulled them back from her face, rather than pulling out their crimpers. They left her feeling like herself, the loose knot at the nape of her neck rather becoming. Hermione knew they knew how well they had done. 

It was only later that she understood the significance of their gift. Ginny hugged her within seconds of her arrival in the common room. Hermione looked at her askance, happy for the hug, but rather confused as to its meaning, until she started telling all and sundry that it was her best friend’s fifteenth birthday. This birthday seemed, somehow, to be meaningful to the girls around her in a way that it wasn’t to Hermione. 

Ginny was happy to explain, “Don’t muggles celebrate a girl’s fifteenth birthday at all?” She added, “We do. It’s like, I don’t know, when a girl isn’t a little girl anymore, though I think the whole thing is silly.”

“Some muggle families do.” Hermione replied, relieved to understand. Fifteen was a coming of age for girls, commensurate to sixteen when the legal age of majority was seventeen and not eighteen as it was in the muggle community. She further explained about Sweet Sixteen and Quinces, which a girl in her primary school knew she would have by virtue of her family’s culture of origin. “But it doesn’t matter to me.” 

“Oh.” Ginny replied, clearly disappointed. “I’ve never had a friend turn fifteen before.” 

“Well, enjoy your day, Gin.” Hermione grinned, as they walked to breakfast. She could celebrate for Ginny, if it meant that much to her. “You now have a friend who is fifteen.” 

Though Hermione was determined to not get swept up in the efforts people were making, she was inundated with cards at breakfast. Cards came from Luna, from Dean and Seamus, from Neville, from the prefects of each house on behalf of their house, and the head students, from Katie, Angelina, and Alicia, from Harry, from his parents, from her parents, from the Weasley parents, from Charlie, Percy and Penny, from Bill. She received cards from Hargid, McGonagall on behalf of her house, from her roommates, from Ginny, and from Susan. There was even, garish and large, a card from Dumbledore. 

She hardly had time to eat, what with cards piling in at every second. There was a card from the House Elves of Hogwarts, from the Goblins she had gotten to know, and even from Crooky, though she recognized her mother’s handwriting and her father’s sense of humor in Crooky’s messages. She even got a card ‘signed’ by Errol, Pig, and Hedwig. 

Her spot at the table was overrun with cards and letters. By her count, there was over thirty cards in her pile, each wishing her well on her birthday and in the year to come. Hermione was going to put them into her bag, when a school owl swooped down and dropped a box next to her plate. 

It was her first birthday present this year, and Hermione felt all eyes on her as she pulled at the twine and brown paper. Inside of a white box, she lifted the tissue paper away to find a thick and heavy book. It was, by all accounts, a magical photo album. 

Hermione realized her mistake when Ginny whispered, “You got your card book!” 

Hermione smoothed her fingers over the the smooth areas of the large book. The cover was monogramed with an H, upon a rich brown leather background. It was tooled, and very pretty. Hermione knew at once that it had come from Fred and George.

Under the table, she reached down to run her fingers along theirs, a silent but heartfelt gesture of thanks. She let every emotion she was feeling flood the bond. Tears prickled her throat when every bit of love and joy she felt came pouring back on her with double the intensity and a wave of pride. She said nothing, but felt everything.  

 Across the table, Harry was explaining, “You can put all your cards in there, and then when you go to Uni and get cards, and when you win your campaigns, you put all the cards that mark milestones in there.”

“Mum loves hers.” Ron interjected, “All the cards she got at her wedding and when were born are in there. She still puts the cards we give her in it. It’ll expand.” 

Neville added, “It’s tradition, mostly for girls. You can put whatever you want in it, whatever matters to you. That’s the point. You create your future, and the memories.” 

Ron swallowed some juice, “Who is yours from?” 

Hermione stared back, but Ginny rolled her eyes and demanded,“Are you thick?”

He stuffed toast in his mouth. “I’m not stupid, you know.” 

“You know…” Fred began, looking at her gently. 

“He does a fantastic impression, doesn’t he?” George grinned. 

“Stop teasing each other.” Hermione insisted, “It’s my birthday.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten!” Fred’s eyes went wide, “Very happy birthday, Hermione.”

“It’s the ninetieth already? That explains the owls, doesn’t it?” George grinned, “Many happy returns.” 

With a great deal deal of patting his robes, George presented her with a card as Fred made a great work of pulling another envelope out of his sleeve. Hermione took her time opening them. The whole table was laughing and joking with Fred and George. 

Ginny, ever the Weasley to have the last word, quirked an eyebrow at Hermione, “Very smooth, aren’t they?”

Hermione laughed until there were tears in her eyes, tears of mirth and of sadness. One day, one day, she wouldn’t have to hide what she felt, and neither would George or Fred. One day, the truth would be spoken, and Hermione wished, as she blew out the single candle on the muffin that Susan Bones brought over to lead a singing, that that day would come soon. 

* * *

The stairs provided a good workout. Beside her, Hermione saw Fred zip past her in a flurry of movement. George was helping Lee with some homework, and Fred and Hermione had finished earlier, and went along to get a head start on stairs. George would catch up when he could, because it was nice to do stairs outside where possible. It made the monotony a little bit easier to bear. 

Hermione was in the middle of a single leg hop, when she noticed a dark haired man watching them. Fred rolled his eyes as he went up the stairs two at a time. It was, Hermione noticed as she moved onward, Victor Krum. They’d spoken a time or two in the library, and this wasn’t the first time they’d bumped into each other on the rare occasion they felt unobserved enough to work out outside. 

Keen to know what was being said between the two men, Hermione ran up the steps and made it seem as though she was grabbing her water bottle and stretching. Victor was saying, “And where is your brother today? He is well, I hope?” 

Fred replied, “He’s studying, but it was nice out, so we came out here.” He wasn’t rude, but he was understandably defensive and protective of their training sessions. It was a point of pride that everyone here was so wrapped up in their own worlds that they had not noticed.

“We are in accord, then.” Victor smiled, “Are you willing to share the stairs?” 

Sharing a look with her, Fred assented. As they got back to work, Victor called out, “You are more fit than I! You challenge me, I do think!”

Hermione smiled, “You caught us on a good day.” 

But the damage had been risked. They had been spotted. A ball of worry churned in Hermione’s gut. Fred caught her eye and shook his head gently. Things were fine, he said, but Hermione was not so sure. 

From then on, it seemed Hermione had made a new friend. In keeping with her plans, Hermione spent much of the term in the Library. She seemed to have acquired a studying companion in the form of one Victor Krum. He was besieged, Hermione knew, by boys who sought to suck up to him and girls who wanted to cosy up to to him. Still, it frustrated Hermione. Not because she minded helping him, but only because the rumor mill spun. 

Apparently she wanted to marry him and have eleven bushy-haired, stooped shouldered, babies. Where she would find the time to raise eleven Bulgarian babies when she was entering into the political arena she did not know. 

 She was in the middle of outlining a book she’d spent two weeks hunting down when he came up behind her. Hermione lifted her head as he folded himself into the empty chair. “Hello, Hermione.” 

Hermione replied. “Hi, Victor.” 

They were birds of a feather, bookish, unwillingly famous, and at odds with much of their contemporaries and their ways of thinking. He was ambitious and quick minded. Hermione knew, whatever the rumor mill might say, that there was indeed a collegial sort of friendship between them. 

He smiled. “Might I work on my own coursework in your company?”

Hermione assented. She had to leave in fifteen minutes for a planned S.P.E.W. planning session, but if she could help someone avoid the pitfalls of fame, she was all for it. They enjoyed working together, as they were on the same sort of wavelength. It was nice to have a friend in Victor. 

Hermione had to get up to find another book in the stacks, but Victor said he’d look after her things. Hermione headed to the disused and musty History of Magic stacks. The corridors between the stacks were wide, and sounds carried. Hermione was in the middle of pulling books from the shelf when she heard George chuckling as she tried to jump up for a book on the third shelf, as it was ignoring the intent of her magic. Knowing he was behind her, she looked up with a smile, only to feel his hand on her elbow. 

With his support, Hermione spun around and pushed up to kiss him. It had been so long that the pent up energy and emotions washed over in a torrent of feeling and desire. Hermione leaned against the shelves as George pressed against her, their kiss stealing her equilibrium and her breath. 

It was over before it had really begun. Within the space of a few thundering heartbeats, George was pulling back, tucking a curl behind her ear, and pressing a gentle kiss to her parted lips. He winked as he put the book in her hands, “Here you go.”

Hermione glanced up, perfunctory as though he really had simply handed her a book. “Thanks.”

He inclined his head, swallowing a laugh. “Anytime. Happy to help.”

Before she broke up the facade, Hermione went back to her table by the window, overlooking rose bushes that were dormant in the fall, but were still home to many bugs and insects buzzing about as if hungry and interested. It was only later, after a Ravenclaw prefect stopped by to borrow some notes, that she realized her eyes were sparkling and her lips tingled with the pleasant memory of George’s kiss. 

* * *

Within days, there was an article proclaiming that Hermione had thrown over Harry for Victor. The hate mail was beyond anything she understood. With each article, came more mail, and came this tensity between her and Fred, and her and George, and Fred and George. They were beyond furious on her account, and utterly locked into being unable to defend her as they would have liked to do. 

It didn’t damage her friendship with Victor, nor the bonds she shared with her boys, but the stolen kisses became more desperate, their hugs longer, and the simmering tension tenser and brighter. The twins pranked her most vicious detractors, earning them detentions. They didn’t care, not that Hermione expected that they might. Her boys had a deeply engrained sense of honor and right and wrong. 

One afternoon, they all three were summoned to McGonagall’s office. Remus just happened, of course, to stick his head into his boss’s office as they were presenting themselves to have their knuckles proverbially rapped. He made himself quite at home on the sofa next to McGonagall. 

“Miss Granger!” McGonagall’s hands were white against her woolen skirt, “Once again I must chide you for creating a diversion for them.” Her glared softened, “I understand your heart was in the right place, and I understand your rightful anger towards those who would attack you based on this pack of lies,” Here she brandished the paper that held yet another Skeeter article lambasting her, “But I cannot understand why you would countenance…”

“It’s very simple, Professor.” Hermione explained, “They were going to do it, with or without me. At least with me, you can be assured that every possible safety protocol was followed and that the plan was expertly executed. I acted in the best interests of the school.” 

Remus groaned. “Is this what these meetings are normally like, Minerva?” 

She looked to her colleague, “Regrettably.” 

“You should have reported their plans, Miss Granger.” McGonagall repeated herself as she had countless times before, knowing full well that Hermione would never do any such thing. 

She turned her stare onto the twins, who rather than sitting with Hermione on the couch nearby, were standing behind the wingback chair she customarily occupied when called to the carpet. “And you two!” She demanded, “What have you to say for yourselves?”

Fred grinned, “At least now when McHugh starts spouting jibberish—”

“He’ll know what it really sounds like to bray like a donkey.” George finished. 

Fred also added, “Hermione said we couldn’t reverse his bowels, so at least he didn’t start spewing—”

“Well, thank you for small mercies.” McGonagall cut off the twins with a look of abject exasperation, “As punishment, you will not be attending the upcoming Yule Ball.” 

They voiced their disagreement with that statement quite adamantly. 

For her part, Hermione exclaimed, “You can’t exclude them from an activity open to the entire school. It’s against the by-laws.”

“Ah, but it’s closed to anyone under fourth year, and is an invitational event.” McGonagall returned, “Classified as such, it is up to the discretion of the professors for each and every student.”

“But I bought dress robes!” Hermione insisted, appealing to emotions rather than logic, “It was a hellish experience, and I do not intend to have my sufferings wasted.”

“My dear Miss Granger.” McGonagall smirked, “I would never dream of denying you the chance to go to the Yule Ball after you went to such lengths. There’s still time to find an escort.” 

Hermione swallowed her glare. “That’s quite all right. I’ll be returning home for Christmas.”

“Your parents are in Barcelona.” Remus reminded her, “And I don’t think they would want you home alone.” 

Yes, they wouldn’t, largely because she wouldn’t be home alone. Remus added, “Think of the electrical grid.” 

She shared a look with her boys. They were in agreement. 

Hermione sighed. Mrs. Weasley was not very happy with her right now, and so it was clear that she couldn’t go to The Burrow. “I don’t suppose I could visit Grimmauld for the holiday?”

“Sirius is coming here for the break, as I must stay on and mind wayward lions.” Remus returned gently, “I am sorry, Hermione. You know our home is yours, but I won’t have you home alone over the holiday.”

McGonagall pursed her lips. “It just so happens that the solution is readily apparent. Mr. Krum hasn’t a date, and it has been of some concern to the school. The champions must open the Ball, you see.”

Victor didn’t have a date because, as he’d told her, he was reluctant to ask a girl who might use the proximity for fame or for manipulation. He was a bit jaded for one so young, but Hermione empathized quite well. 

“I couldn’t possibly.” Hermione insisted, “The papers…”

McGonagall countered, “It will be good to set aside rumors of any animosity and it will be a favor to me.”

Hermione bit out, “Yes, and it will fuel rumors that I am, in fact, Krum’s paramour.”

George cut in, “Skeeter uses such…”

“Disgusting language, really—” Fred faux-shuddered. 

George summarized, “Horrible expressions.” 

“I am afraid, Hermione, that you made your choice when you empowered Fred and George to act on petty words.” The transfiguration professor was resolute, “You will put your money where your mouth is and represent your school to your country and to the world.” 

“I’m sure your blackmailing me with this.” Hermione noted, “What will you do if I don’t?” 

McGonagall’s expressive eyebrow arched. “Do you really want to know?”

“Fine.” Hermione sighed, “He’s my friend. I’ll help him. I know what it feels like to be left out through no fault of your own.” Hermione added sternly, “But if anyone here thinks I’ve any designs on Krum, they are sadly mistaken.”

“I am not in the habit of interfering in my student’s romantic liaisons, Miss Granger.” McGonagall seemed genuinely affronted. 

Remus snorted behind his teacup. 

George grumbled, “I’m glad someone finds this funny.”

“Because really, we don’t.” Fred groused.

“No more pranks.” Minerva intoned, ending their meeting in her customary way. 

Hermione sighed, knowing that other traditions would have to be followed. She booked their next meeting at the end of the previous one, and never once had they not needed it. “I’ll put us down for a meeting next week.”

“Do.” McGonagall replied, shoo-ing Fred and George out ahead of Hermione. When she was at the door, McGonagall called, “And Miss Granger? Thank you.” 

Hermione smiled. “Let Krum it’s okay to ask me. He doesn’t need to know the details. He’s old fashioned, so he’ll logically assume that I wanted your consent.”

McGonagall agreed, “As you wish.” 

* * *

Hermione continued interviewing elves and beginning to make inroads with advocacy efforts.

She tried to ignore the Ball, even though it was all the Elves would discuss. She accepted gracefully when Victor asked her to accompany him, and went on about her life. One evening wasn’t the end of the world, and both Fred and George were good sports about it. 

Ginny was shocked when Hermione revealed the circumstances of her evening. She was genuinely sympathetic, and insisted on fixing Hermione’s hair. Her roommates wanted to straighten it, but Ginny, knowing Hermione’s feelings, was resolute. In the end, the tousled ease of her curls as they rested gently on the nape of her neck was perfect. 

It was too bad Hermione wasn’t going to get to leave her lipstick on pale skin, wasn’t going to press her lips gently against sensitive spots, wasn’t going to be able to dance with the men she loved. It was all well and good to go with a friend, but she was absurdly jealous of the couples she saw on the dance floor, and how free and happy they were. She couldn’t even hold their hands in public. 

Victor was a good man and a kind person. He worked so hard to be kind, to rise above the dark reputation of his school. He worked hard. He was smart, and very articulate, even with the language barrier. Hermione knew there could have been something there with him, in another life, in another world. 

He made her laugh. He didn’t obsess over fame. He seemed to abhor it. He talked about his parents and his siblings as though they were the moon and stars. He never touched her inappropriately or made advances. He liked to talk about muggle literature. He was sweet. 

And yet, he wasn’t George, he wasn’t Fred, and he wasn’t one of her bonded. She knew that if she had never met Fred and George Weasley that tonight would have been one of the most magical of her life. And yet, it never could be, never, because as challenging as it was to be hidden, she would never choose anything else, not so as long as she dwelled in the shadows with those who loved her. 

Victor was such a good man that Hermione knew she would never be enough for him, not with her heart and soul already given with such surety. She would, it seemed, be friends with him, knowing that he could have loved her if only she could have loved him. It was disingenuous to pretend that he had even, that they even, had a shot had at making something good together. 

Why would they, when she had something far more beautiful? 

They were ships in the night. As they strolled the lit gardens, Victor smiled down at her. “You are sad, Hermione. We are friends. I will listen.”

“It’s nothing, really.” Hermione assured him, thinking of all the million ways she could tell him. She wanted desperately to tell him. Somehow, she knew Victor would be supportive, because he cared about her and was friends with her boys. 

“If it matters to you, it’s something.” Victor replied, conviction clear within his accented words. 

Hermione took a chance. “I am happy to be here with you tonight. It is only that circumstances beyond my control meant that I had to break my original date, and I was so looking forward to tonight, as a way to just be like everyone else…” She sighed, “I just want somebody to know what I know. Not because their knowing would change it, it’s only that we deserve that as much as anyone else.” 

Victor’s soft voice was astute as they wandered the paths of the warmed garden, mindful of the chaperones walking nearby to keep the two-by-two-ing to a minimum, “Love, my friend, is something that should never be hidden, eh?”

Hermione stiffened, “I didn’t say…”

“You forget that I was waiting for you to announce you were coming here with them tonight.” Victor noted, “I only worked up the courage to ask you when it became clear you were free.” 

He smiled again at her, and Hermione knew that McGonagall had kept her word in arranging things, “Though, of course, not as free as I had once dreamed.”

“Victor…” Hermione wanted nothing more to apologize. She could never love him. She could never be more than his friend, and she hated the idea of hurting him, but she could not be sorry for loving who she did. Never would she trade what she had with Fred and with George, not even in spite of the pain. 

“You cannot change your heart, and I would not ask you to alter something that is beautiful.” Victor absolved her, hesitating as he asked, “Only promise that you will do something for me, Hermione?”

Hermione’s response was equally soft, “What?”

“Be happy, Hermione.” Victor’s expression shifted in the torch light after a long second, “Be happy, and know that your truth, though it may be misunderstood by small, single-minded people, is beautiful. The Bulgarian quidditch star is perhaps more than a surly sportsman, the Brightest Witch of her Age is more than a brain on legs, and so it follows that the pranksters of Hogwarts might be similarly human.”  

Hermione knew better than to tell Victor about the ways George made her laugh, and made her heart beat and her knees weak, or the ways Fred infuriated her and made her body clench and her palms sweat. “There’s so much at stake.”

“When you love someone, you want only their happiness, is this not true?” Victor asked, “Let not fear stand in the way. When you make yourself vulnerable, there is a strength to it.”

Hermione knew he had made his point. She grinned. “You have the mind of a philosopher, Victor.”

“Perhaps, my friend, perhaps.” Victor mused, “But tonight? Tonight we dance. If you like.”

And so they did, smiling and laughing with the ease of friends who were happy to be friends amongst the teenage angst of a ball, until they were one of the first couples to part. Victor had to be up to for training to keep fit for Quidditch, and Hermione had lipstick prints to leave behind on pale skin. She wasn’t about to let her one attempt at wearing makeup to go to waste. 

How fortuitous then, that her boys had waited up for her. When she came through the portrait hole, Fred noted, “It’s barely eleven.”

“Surprisingly,” Hermione gazed archly at them, “Victor has to be up at five for practice, Boxing Day or not, and I wasn’t about to spend my Christmas with anyone else but you two.” She pressed a hand to her brow, “We parted as we began, dear friends. Alas. Alack.” She sobered, dropping her shoes onto a chair near the fire, “Come on, you both knew what this was.” 

“We did—” George agreed. 

“But it was still horrible.” Fred whispered, stepping closer to her. 

George met her eyes when he was within touching distance, “We just want to be with you.”

“I want that too, and I’m regretting promising your mother we’d be so careful.” Hermione admitted for the millionth time, “But it was good, too.”

Fred asked, curiosity and jealous as plain in his voice as it was on George’s face. “How so?”

“Well, if nothing else, I’ve realized that I’m a little confused by monogamy.” She scrunched her nose, mocking questions she’d gotten a time or two when discussing the topic, albeit in the academic sense, “I mean, how does that even work?”

Fred laughed, and George snorted. Hermione, having removed her shoes before climbing inside, dashed for the stairs to the boy’s dorm.

They weren’t closed to girls, because evidently girls were more trustworthy. Hermione knew for a fact that Lee was camping out in Hufflepuff, and Kenneth had gone to Hong Kong. Poor Kenneth had it rough.

Hermione genuinely liked the guy, but she had never been so glad for an empty dorm room in all her life. 

They overtook her easily, as Hermione had anticipated, and Fred hoisted her up, citing her sheer tights on the stone stairs, and dropped her down on George’s bed. George warded and locked the door. Hermione mockingly glared down at the freshly made, obviously enlarged, bed, “Don’t tell me you planned this.”

“We might have had a peek at your thoughts.” George admitted, “But you can hardly blame us, Kitten.”

“I suppose not.” Hermione sighed. After all, they had been very good thoughts.  “Anybody got a galleon?”

Not surprisingly, one wasn’t needed. 

* * *

 

Hermione, after Christmas, kept on working with the elves. It was easier than facing the hate mail that kept coming her way. Either she was a jezebel for dating Krum, or was a traitor to her country for throwing Harry over. 

She got so much hate mail as the weeks passed. She got yet more hate mail. She got so much hate mail that owls had to be prescreened. Then, the howler came. Hermione hadn’t know what make of it. 

That was, until Molly’s voice filled the Great Hall. “HERMIONE! IN ALL MY DAYS, NEVER DID I THINK THAT YOU, YOU OF ALL PEOPLE, WOULD BEHAVE—”

Then, the howler exploded in a ball of fire, clearly triadic magic. 

Even though people were whispering and staring, Hermione looked to Fred. “I didn’t know you could silence a howler.”

Those around them went wild. Nobody knew how the twins had done it, but they had pulled off a feat worthy of comment, even when it came from them.

Hermione raged. If anyone had been looking, they would have seen triadic magic. Hermione merely thanked them and turned back to her cereal. Inside, however, she was angry. 

When she got a smaller toffee egg from Molly than anyone else, due of course, to Rita’s latest blathering, Hermione felt something inside snap as she sat in front of the hearth in the Tower, deserted except for a scant few Weasleys and a single Granger. 

She threw the egg and watched as it incinerated in the air. Ginny gaped at her. Fred put a gentle hand of her shoulder. George reassured her, “We’ve written her countless times, Hermione.”

Hermione repeated herself as she had a million times before, “I’m not putting you two between your mum and me.”

“It’s not a choice.” Fred asserted, yet again. 

George backed that statement up, as he was wont to do. “Especially when Mum’s being mental.”

“As if you’d date Harry.” Ginny agreed, “You’re like his mother.” 

“I wouldn’t do that to you, Ginny.” Hermione assured her, “Even if our relationship wasn’t like that.”

“Hey, I’ve known him all my life and I haven’t gotten anywhere yet.” Ginny smiled, and flipped a page of her magazine, “I’m not pining away.” 

“I’ve got to say, Neville’s pretty sweet, Ginny.” Hermione mused, “If I wasn’t me, well, I wouldn’t give him a knock back.” 

“He is growing up nicely, isn’t he?” Ginny giggled, making a face for the discomfort of her older brothers. 

George put the heel of his palm to his eyes, “Can we focus?”

“Please?” Fred was looking between them, mouthing, ‘Neville?’ and counting on his fingers. 

Hermione sighed, “If we must.” She returned to her original point, “My feelings are hurt, but I’m a big girl.” 

She grinned, “That might be why I got less toffee. Maybe that’s a gentle admonishing to watch my figure or something.”

“Shut up, Hermione.” Ginny crossly demanded, “I refuse to give credence to your internalized body shaming.” 

Rather than go there, again, Hermione made up her mind, “We’ll let it go.” 

The twins sighed in that creepy tandem way of theirs. “If you say so.” Fred agreed slowly. 

George stared at her face for a long moment, “I don’t like it, but okay.” 

* * *

And so they did, until the last task, when Mrs. Weasley arrived to support Hogwarts and Bill was acting in a professional capacity. Mrs. Weasley was initially quite chilly, until Bill said something sternly, and Mrs. Weasley opened up a little bit. 

Hermione, still very hurt, returned her polite words with equal distance. When they were alone, Hermione knew she had to speak her truth. “I know what Muriel believes about foci.” Hermione finally said, “But I never thought you would believe such things of me, not when you know better than anyone, anyone, what I feel.”

Mrs. Weasley walked by her side as they moved towards the storage rooms. Hermione would have never been able to see these things without her relationships with the elves, but she was keen to see the Cup. “You must understand, Hermione.” 

“What I understand is that you hurt my boys. You hurt Fred. You hurt George.” Hermione returned, as they reached a narrow corridor,“I don’t need to understand anything else. I love you, and they love you, but I’ll be damned if I let you come after them.”

“I am their mother.” Molly asserted, “I had a right to be concerned.”

“Not after they begged you to stop and you still sent that howler, which was ironic really, considering you were the one who made us promise to stay hidden. The only time we’ve nearly been outed happened at your hand, Molly.” Hermione informed her, “Not ours, but yours.” 

“I deserve your ire.” Molly was ashen, the realization of what she had almost done to them finally becoming clear, “And I will bear it, but you cannot imagine my terror.”

“You cannot imagine what it is to love two people with the entirety of your being, and yet know that people find your love shameful and worth hiding.” Hermione knew Molly was hurt by her words, but they had to be said. She knew Molly would never intentionally hurt them, but she had done so all the same.

Hermione continued,  “You cannot imagine that pain. I cannot even so much as hold their hands. I have said nothing when countless girls flutter and flirt, when boys make jokes about their single state, when they pull away just before they might kiss me, terrified that someone might come round the corner. I can't even allude to the fact that they're a part of my future.”

“I never realized.” Molly admitted, “I am sorry. But to out the bond…”

“I never said anything about jumping up and screaming out that we’re a triad.” Hermione assured her, “But I want you to know that we’ve decided, next year, we’re through hiding our relationships. We’re going to figure it out as we go along.”

“I…” Molly swallowed, “Thank you for telling me.”

Hermione grinned, “No problem.” She pushed open the doors to the storeroom, “They’re keeping the Cup in here.”

* * *

Hermione was satisfied that the air was clear with Molly. It was a moment she had been looking forward to for some time, simply because she knew Molly would understand. She wasn’t a monster, only quick to believe the written words that had played on her old fears and wounds.

Molly, having seen the Cup, wandered off to sort out her overnight accommodations in the guest wing of the castle. 

Hermione took her time in watching the elves clean the Cup. There was something not quite right. There was something pulling on the magic in the room. It was dark. It was earth magic, pulsing out from the cup. For the second time in a year, she screamed, “Stop!” as the elves polished it, unaware of its darkness, “Stop!” 

Hermione watched as the elves scrambled away, staring at her. Their Miss Grangy was scared. Several rushed to assure themselves that she was alright. Yet another reached out to pat her hand, which crackled with magic. 

Along the bond, she felt interest, concern, and two people focusing very intently on finding out where she was, and moving closer to her. Hermione was glad that they were on their way. She could feel them moving with some speed through the castle, down the stairs. It was two less people she had to send someone to find. 

 She looked to Pulley, “Please get Bill Weasley, McGonagall and Remus. As soon as possible.”

Pulley popped away with a single nod. The rest of the elves, at Hermione’s gentle cautioning, went to the kitchens. In the meantime, Hermione warded the cup. She shook with terror and fury. 

Fred and George pushed their way through the door, and their faces went slack when they felt what she was feeling on their own. There was no mistaking what this was, though she said nothing as she continued to ward the Cup. 

When the crowd was gathered, she looked to Fred and George, “Feel it, even though the wards?”

“Hermione.” Fred insisted, feeling for himself the darkness that poured off its energy signature, “Step away from it.”

Hermione shook her head gently. 

There was a genuine fear thrumming over the bond, even as George all but demanded she comply. “Hermione, now.”

She couldn’t listen right now. She understood where they were coming from, but really, being in the same room with a piece of Voldemort wouldn’t change anything. It wasn’t as if…

Belatedly, Hermione remembered the horcruxes, and stepped back, gently. This wasn’t a horcrux, she knew that by feel alone, but that didn’t mean she fully knew what this would do without some independent verification. 

“I’ve a theory.” Hermione asserted, “It feels like Voldemort. I think it’s a porkey.” From where she stood between her boys, Hermione glanced at their eldest brother, “Bill?”

Hermione had called him for his professional expertise. He did whatever it was that he did to check wards and magical signatures, and slowly nodded. “It’s a portkey. Where? How?”

Hermione grimly admitted, “Well, I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

“Absolutely not.” Remus insisted, “You will not!” 

“Who here is the Focus, Remus?” Hermione returned,  not missing the shock on McGonagall’s face or the satisfaction on Bill’s face, “Though really, I prefer the term pivot. Much more equalizing, you know, the whole relationship isn’t about me.” 

“Doesn’t matter.” Remus wasn’t, very obviously, going to let her steamroll him. “You can’t go.”

“I haven’t a choice!” Hermione returned, “Would you rather Fleur or Victor or Cedric grabbed the cup? Haven’t you wondered why Harry’s name was in the cup? This is why! This alone.” Voldemort’s source hadn’t been able to get a message to him, clearly, that Harry wasn’t competing, or else the whole thing would be pointless.  

Bill cursed. 

McGonagall face was ashen. “You three? You…” She inhaled, “So much makes sense.”

“Yes, I am sorry you had to find out like this, but we’re really very happy.” Hermione assured her, “And I’ll be happy to talk about it anytime you like, but right now, I’ve a Dark Lord to confront.”

“How can I consent to this?” Bill asked, and Hermione realized that she had brought him here in his father’s stead. It was horribly patriarchal to turn to the heir, but there was no way she was involving Molly. Molly would just worry, and Hermione wasn’t going to do that to her. “Knowing you may die?”

Hermione was deadly serious, “I won’t let them die, Bill.” 

Bill looked at her as though he had never seen her before, “It’s all three of you I’m worried about!”

“Give them your blessing, Bill.” McGonagall insisted, “It’s what your father would want, were he here.” She turned to her students, “If you die, I shall pull you from your graves myself.” 

“Aw, Min.” George replied, “We knew you loved us. We knew.”

As they flirted, Hermione summoned her bug out bag, an old knapsack that held the very basic supplies they might need to go into a battle. She slid jeans up her legs under her skirt, and let the skirt fall once the trousers were buttoned. 

“But alas,” Fred sighed, accepting the shoes that Hermione shoved at him some controlled haste, “We must break your heart, beloved Goddess of Wisdom, for our souls belong to another.”

George shrugged on his own trainers, hopping as he slid his foot into them in turn. “Right possessive, she is.”

Hermione transfigured her bra, and slipped on a track jacket. She shoved her jumper back into the bag, and reached down to pull out two more enhanced track jackets. 

George stuffed his knife into the pocket of his trousers and zipped his jacket.“But know that, were we free to love another, we’d worship you.”

“We do, from afar.” Fred zipped up his own jacket, and gripped his wand, “Just don’t tell Hermione.”

“Are you two done?” Hermione grinned, tying up her hair. “I’m sure she is aware of your eternal devotion.”

Hermione was aware that this banter was doing so much for the others in the room, and she was more than happy to participate. They needed to distract their families from the reality of what they were facing. It was possible they would never come back, and she knew her boys would want to leave the world laughing. 

George rolled his eyes comically, “Oh, don’t be jealous, Kitten.” 

“We’ve always had a thing for our Min.” Fred winked at the professor in question, who wasn’t even scolding them, just smiling fondly, “She’s a one wizard kind of lady, though.”

“What a crying shame.” Hermione stuck her knife into her pocket, “Absolutely and totally.”

“Such is life, my darling.” Fred sighed, “Such is life. She’s the one that got away.” 

Bill choked on his own laughter, and adopted a stern expression. “While you stand here flirting, Tom Riddle’s gaining power.”

Fred returned, “Well, we can’t have that.” 

In that moment, everyone sobered. 

Hermione knew that she looked like a warrior, wand at the ready, when she asked, “Ready?”

George affirmed. “Count of three, Kitten.” 

Fred took her hand. “One.”

“Two.” George gently took her elbow, linking them together. 

Hermione looked at her beloved professors, Bill, and then back at her boys. “Three.”

With that, she touched the cup, and they were gone. 

* * *

Hermione was spitting angry. She was too angry to be tired. She pushed up against her hospital wing bed, and spat out yet more blood, though she was reasonably confident that the healing spells were working and that was the last of the expectorated blood.  “How could you let him follow?” 

Ignoring her mentor, knowing nothing he repeated would satisfy her, Hermione scowled at the young man in question, “Voldemort has a body now, I hope you realize.”

“I was there, Hermione.” Harry asserted, crossing his arms at the foot of her bed. “Or did your bloody heroics rob you of your vision and your memory?”

“Do not sass me!” Hermione wiped her face with the warm flannel, removing the remnants of blood from her cracked lips. “I’m the Focus, and I say when you smite him. You don’t go off half cocked because you’ve got a saving people thing.” 

Hermione sipped some water, her words steel even as her hands were shaking, “I can make the sky burn and water bleed. I can make the earth tremble, and the atmosphere bend to my will. The merest brush of my lips causes thunderstorms.” She looked him square in the eye, “I don’t need you to rescue me, thank you.” 

“Hermione…” Remus was clearly in the aftermath mode, beyond his own anger and worry and fear, a pragmatist to the core, “We all made mistakes. But you are all alive. We know he’s back. We’re going to call the Order together. This is progress. You did not fail.” 

“You son nearly died when his blood was harvested! If we hadn’t—” Hermione swore, “Are you going to call that good?”  

Fred emerged from the shower, dressed in freshly laundered lounge pants and a thin shirt meant for sleeping. His hair was wet and dripping onto the towel as he dried his hair. “Kitten, don’t lecture the kid. He’s seen you in action. He won’t cross you again.”

“You all were the ones who’ve been coddling me for years!” Harry cried,  glaring at Fred and then back at her. “So you haven’t any right to be angry.” 

“That is my job!” Hermione asserted, shoving her way out of her bed, because it was hot in here and she needed air and her magic was wonky yet again, “I’m playing chess, here, Harry. You don’t play the king the first few moves.”

“You’re abysmal at chess.” Harry returned, “And you nearly died.”

Hermione groaned as she found her feet, her cotton nightdress falling around her calves as she moved towards Fred. Voldemort, though weak even once his servant had robed him, was quite happy to play Torture the Focus, though of course he had not known what she was, not really. And then Harry had showed up, wrecking their plans and engaging with Voldemort before he was ready. 

She resisted the urge to thank him for stating the obvious. “Just don’t tell my Mum, alright?”

Remus looked away, for a scant second. Hermione knew then that it was too late. She buried her face in Fred’s chest. She muttered, as his arms came around her, “Would now be a good time to flee the country using our fabricated Canadian passports?”

He kissed the top of her head, “I think those only work for fleeing Voldy. Your mum would just find us, and drag us back.” 

From where he stood in the doorway, George was cradling a freshly healed arm against a few newly repaired ribs. Hermione pressed her fingers gently to Fred’s healed collarbone. “She would.” 

And with that, Hermione closed her eyes. “Don’t wake me for a week.” 

Behind her, she heard Remus saying, “If you practiced more, you wouldn’t get so tired after.”

Hermione flicked her fingers behind her, and heard her mentor hitting the deck as Harry gasped. It was altogether very satisfying. 

When she woke up, Hermione had a beetle in a jar to address, found just moments after their return from facing Voldemort, sitting as bold as brass on the window Hermione had gone to close. She could see the headlines  and publicity now. She could see the typeface now, “Stop the Outrageous Abuse of Our Fellow Magical Creatures: Campaign for a Change in Their Legal Status” or as Hermione liked to think of her drafts, “House Elves: A History.”


	9. Summer 1995

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of Summer 1995 
> 
> Warnings: maybe sort of underage drinking, though not really, even if they don't know it yet. Discussions of consent. 
> 
> Also, AU. AU. AU. But sort of cannon-ish, if you squint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so my head cannon in this verse is that music in the Wizarding community is a lot of muggle folk music blended together with magical turntables. Basically, house music with the Corries.

Fred and George were utterly dumbstruck. They didn’t even hear her father call out, “Look, Miranda! There’s our darling daughter, Death Wish, and her loyal henchmen.” 

Hermione rolled her eyes. The whole platform had likely heard him. Given that the papers, thanks to her little tete a tete with Rita, were sticking to the party line that Harry had usurped Cedric, all eyes were on her. Not, of course, as the focus in a triad, but as Harry Potter’s best friend.

The school was buzzing. Unfortunately, once Fudge got wind of things, Harry had ended up taking the fall. 

Hermione herded her boys towards her parents, as she had just left the loo and had a discussion with Sirius. She’d come out to find Harry slapping them on the shoulders and pressing a bank draft into their space. Hermione had kissed Harry on the cheek in admiration for his kindness and his wonderful soul, and moved along.

Now, her boys, exchanging glances, and muttering, they followed along. 

She greeted her parents, and apologized for the vapid looks on George and Fred’s faces, “They’ve just won the equivalent of £3000.” Hermione confided, knowing that her parents knew that, despite the exchange rate, galleons went much farther, pound per galleon. “We hit part of the five year plan a bit early. They’re sorting it out in their brains.” 

“Well, congratulations.” Mum hugged her, “We were going to go to dinner on the way, so we’ll just leave them in the car to process.”

It had already been arranged that they were coming home with her.

Hermione was done, utterly done, with the whole parting at the station routine. Molly seemed to be totally fine with it, though Hermione figured she likely still felt terrible about her behavior over the last year. Hermione had tried to absolve her, but she needed to absolve herself. If absolving herself allowed Hermione more time with her boys, she wasn’t going to question it. 

When her father asked just how they had come by such money in one fell swoop running a mail order business, Hermione told him, “Well, to keep a lid on things, it turns out that Harry won the TriWizard. He tried to give the money to Cedric, but he wouldn’t hear of it, so Harry invested in a startup company of which he is fond.”

Shrinking down the trunks, George asked, “Did you really have to kiss him?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. If that counted as a kiss in George’s mind, she wondered what he called what he’d done with her last night. 

Fred glanced at his brother, “Rather Oedipal, if you ask me.”

“He just eliminated about two years of packing boxes and going round to our families for a meal.” Hermione returned, hefting the carry-on because she hadn’t actually broken any arms or collarbones this time, though her ankle still hurt a bit. “I’m surprised you both didn’t snog him outright.” 

Now that she thought about it, she was genuine in that sentiment. She’d honestly thought her boys might throw her over for Harry, or at least promise him free pranking tools or the soul of their firstborn. Whatever they said, she was not calling a child after Harry. The rumors that would start made Hermione inwardly chuckle. 

Quickly, Hermione looked around, “Where’s Crooky?” 

Fred lifted his left hand gently, from where he grasped the cat carrier, which held a protesting Crooky. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Granger.”

Hermione winked. What, Harry James Potter Granger-Weasley didn’t sound good to Fred? Pity. Maybe he was right, and they should leave that for Ginny. She was the sort to be fond of having a Junior running around. 

George grimaced, easily following the the thread of her thoughts. “Could you not, please?” 

Hermione laughed. At least she had successfully distracted them from picking her news out of her brain. Distracting them was so easy. 

Her parents called their names from where they were walking ahead through the throng. Hermione hastened along, looking to her traveling companions. She wanted to tell them her news, but she wanted to be sure her parents got a good view. 

“Can we focus, please?” Hermione returned, “This requires some alterations to the five year plan.”

She had the parchments in her bag, shrunken down in their folio. She’d seen Sirius leaving the loo after getting off the train, and they’d had a lovely chat. She’d promised to send the twins his way, though of course at the time, she’d not known that Harry was planning on giving them the money. He’d done it while she was tending to her needs, and Sirius’s smirking as he relayed his information made so much sense.

Fred’s mind was already on his meal. How utterly predictable. Hermione knew he was thinking about some great slab of meat. She hoped he’d packed a toothbrush.  Lips that had recently touched cooked flesh didn’t touch hers. “After dinner, if you please.” 

George looked at her as she stopped on the platform, unwilling to cross. Her parents were chatting with Molly, Arthur, and Ginny, so there was some time to be had. “Can we bask in our good fortune, before you crack the whip, overlady wondrous?” 

“Well, alright, I won’t tell you that Sirius has a tenant moving out in Diagon.” Hermione grinned, “93 Diagon Alley.” Hermione ignored George’s squeaking, and continued as though she was discussing the weather, “I told him—”

“What?” Fred blurted, stilling. 

Hermione breezed right along in her conversation. This sort of talking in bits and bites was rather fun. “That we couldn’t possibly—”

“Hermione.” George sternly begged for information. 

“He was a bit disappointed,” Hermione revealed with a sigh, watching as realization dawned on her boys’ faces, “Offered us a family discount on rent and everything, but I said to him, ‘Sirius, my boys are a stickler for their plan, and I wouldn’t dream of—’”

Hermione grabbed Crooksy from Fred as George ran, yelling his twin's godfather's name. This caught her mother and father’s attention, though she noticed that the Weasleys had gone, likely to beat lines at the apparition points.

Fred followed, yelling for his brother and for Sirius. They were half-way down the platform before she finished speaking. 

Hermione was well-pleased with herself. Glancing at her parents with a self-satisfied smirk, she saw that her mother was laughing and her father was gaping. Hermione arched an eyebrow, “What?”

“You just played them like fiddles, Hermione.” Her father asserted, “I’m not sure I like this manipulative side of you, witch.”

Hermione knew he was joking, and did not scandalize him with the knowledge that certain young men of his acquaintance rather did like it. Still, she sighed. “They’ll thank me one day. You’ll see.” 

Her mother understood that Sirius, in coming to her, had put the decision ultimately in her lap. She knew them best, and Sirius was asking her if her boys were ready for this. After all, they already had one year of school left. The timing was not ideal. Had she thought it a bad idea, she could have framed it that way to Fred and to George. 

Her opinion, Hermione thought, was made clear in her presentation. 

Mum regarded her with barely suppressed glee. “Your poor shocked boys. Today’s been a red letter day for them, hasn’t it?”

“They’re such pitiable creatures, aren’t they?” Hermione agreed, relishing the feelings flooding the bond. They were so happy, in this moment, that Hermione’s knees nearly went weak as her heart swelled with joy. They had worked so hard for this good to come their ways, and Hermione was blessed, she felt, to be a part of it. 

And then, Lee Jordan was running down the platform screaming her name. He lifted her off her feet and spun her around, “We’ve a shop! We’ve a shop!” He was laughing, “We’ve a shop!”

Hermione couldn’t but help the genuine grin that spread across his face, “I heard you, Lee.” Lee stabilized her, not that she needed the help.

He looked so happy. Hermione was loathe to let the conversation end, “I suppose you left the twins to hammer out details.”

“They won’t without you.” Lee skittered around her, grabbing her ams with glee as some Hufflepuffs looked on, “And so we’ve a meeting in a few weeks. Said it was a nasty trick to let them go by themselves, but I rather could kiss you.” 

“Please don’t.” Hermione deadpanned. 

Lee was in raptures, quite ignored her attempt at humor, “Goodbye summer job as a KP. Goodbye ugly chef.”

“I wouldn’t quit your job just yet.” Hermione cautioned him. It would be months before there was shop for Lee to work in, and it would be ages until he was finished with school and figured out what he wanted to really do. Hermione knew his time at the shop would be finite. He would always be their friend, but his heart wasn’t in this long-term, which Hermione understood. 

“Ah, don’t rag on my dreams, Hermione.” Lee hugged her once more, and ran off to head home, likely via apparition. 

As he ran off, Hermione heard him yelling, “Oi, Kenny! We’ve a shop! KENNY!” 

She had never pitied their poor roommate so much in all her days. 

* * *

Her boys were all visions for the shop over dinner, even to the point that she had to remind them to eat their food. At one point, George pushed his plate over at her, leading Hermione to remind him gently that the point of dinner was for him to eat his own food.

Everyone got a laugh out of that, but Hermione was oddly touched. She knew that he was distracted yes, but even with his mind a million miles away, his first instinct was to take care of her.

 Naturally, Crooks was disillusioned at her feet. Never would she leave her feline in the car, and there was some benefit to magic.

In any case, insofar as the shop, they saw no reason to delay the process, given that they needed to see the premises to actually make an action plan. Hermione ate her stew as the table overflowed with discussion. Her parents were hugely supportive, despite the challenges that they knew were coming their way in making the shop a success. It was quite a nice start to the summer, all told. 

Within two weeks, they had a meeting with their account manager at the bank, and signed a lease to 93 Diagon Alley. Well, the twins signed it. Hermione merely was there for moral support, though of course they sought her input. She got some odd looks from the barrister, but Sirius put him off as her being a member of the family. 

Two days after that, Sirius, in a show of familial devotion, handed them copies of the keys, and asked them not to blow the place up. Hermione thought that was a fair request. She gave him her word that all possible precautions would be taken not to level Diagon and he grinned. 

After that, it was all hands on deck to clean the shop. Ginny and Harry offered up portions of their summer. Lee, in between his shifts at the restaurant, popped over to help. Every other Weasley was supportive in some way, save Molly, who cried when she came into the shop. Hermione had quickly taken her for a cuppa, noticing very quickly the pain it caused her boys. 

Given that the shop had last been a knitting and fabric store, there was a bit of cleaning to do. Everywhere there was unsold stock, which had become theirs under the terms of the lease, which Hermione knew was eventually going to turn into the deed to the place when the twins graduated. Sirius, after all, was Fred’s Godfather, and it was customary to give a young man tools to support a family upon his graduation. Remus was already going on about something he was cooking up for George, and Hermione knew better than to ask. If Fred got a shop, she hoped that George’s gift was smaller, though she knew better.

They had never favored one twin over the other. 

 Hermione carted skeins of yarn home for Molly by the trunk full. Hermione brought her fabrics she couldn’t bear to sell, beautiful laces and silks, and serviceable wools. Hermione saw Ginny’s eyes light up when she clapped eyes on a really lovely eggshell silk and matching lace. It was all Hermione could do not to hum the bridal march as Gin grabbed it reverently. 

It didn’t do much to change Molly’s opinions. She was still steadfastly clinging to the idea of having two more sons in the Ministry. She’d taken to stuffing adverts under their door. One day, when they were deep in the cleaning of the flat above the shop, Ginny confided, “Mum’s terrified the twins will move out now.”

“Of course they won’t.” Hermione asserted, wondering how one shopkeeper had kept so many Kneazles in one flat without Sirius figuring it out. She was literally de-shedding the walls, wondering if they might eventually have to repaper them. 

Hermione was quite certain that, while the boys might crash here on busy nights and before early mornings, that they were not going to be setting up housekeeping. When they moved, she wanted to move in together, and she’d already promised her parents that she wouldn’t cohabitate before she finished school. 

She continued, watching Ginny spit out a bit of kneazle fluff. “I think the whole thing with Percy is just exacerbating her fears.” 

Ginny’s expression was pained. Percy had been promoted, and it had led to a row. He’d gone to Penny’s flat in London, and wasn’t speaking to his family. Having been on the other end of Molly’s temper, Hermione understood, but she knew too, that Percy was being a pig-headed ponce. “I’ll tell her you’re against the idea of living together before marriage.” Ginny decided, “That should soothe her. Though, maybe not. I’ll tell her you want a big ceremony before you formalize things.” 

Hermione snorted. “If you think it’ll help.” 

They continued on with working. Downstairs, Charlie was donating his weekend to help repaint walls. Even with magic, it was hard work, made easier by several hands. Hermione apparently did not possess enough artistic talents to put paint on a wall, so she had been banished.

Rather than go and deal with setting up the stock room, which held a boggart, Hermione wandered up to the flat with Ginny to clean it out. The previous tenant had left her things behind before she went to Salem to live with her daughter in retirement. There was something like 80 years of things to clean out, and Hermione had too much respect to just bin it. 

She had an entire room full of stuff to take to Oxfam, and another pile of things they might consider keeping. They might not need them now, but there was nobody who would fault her for hanging on to good cookware and plates. Unlike Ginny’s suppositions, there wasn’t a big white wedding in her future. The whole idea of such a thing made her itch. 

George, she knew, had some idea of an eventual party because he was a giant marshmallow of caring, so Hermione knew they’d probably have something small. She figured she’d let Fred plan it for a laugh. Her mother would think it funny, and Molly would faint. 

Hermione banished another pile of kneazle hair, and brushed her hair back.

The flat was really quite lovely underneath the old lady detritus and layers of tatted furniture covers, with wide windows and wooden floors. It was a sturdy place, not overly large, but not cramped. The kitchen was a bit pokey, but it wasn’t as though they were very good cooks. There was a bedroom on the main floor, next to the loo, and two smaller rooms in the attic she knew would be further lab and testing space. The sitting room was large, and boasted an alcove Hermione had claimed as her own. 

It was, admittedly, a bit odd to know that, as she stood in the middle of these rooms, that she was home and to genuinely feel that way about the shop. This place, with her wards overtop, in between, and underneath Fred's and George’s own wards, made her feel safe and comfortable. She felt at home here in a way that soothed her soul.

She knew that one day, she would be very happy here. It was a forgone conclusion that she was going to do exactly as she pleased with these rooms, although she had promised she wouldn’t paint the loo pink. She’d only brought the swatches as a joke. 

 Hermione looked at the sun slanting through the windows, saw the kneazle hair floating on the air, and went to find the non-electric Hoover. Spells weren’t cutting it. 

* * *

 

Lee, within weeks, put out the word that he was throwing a party to celebrate. Though they were working very hard to keep the whole thing about the shop actually becoming a reality quiet outside of the family, Hermione knew they were obligated to go. It was a good thing that Lee’s 17th birthday was approaching, and that anyone else would simply think he was precipitously celebrating his coming of age. 

When the owl came, Hermione looked at her parents and wondered how they might respond. They were proud of their efforts with the shop, but it was clear that they were worried. Hermione had done her best to assure them that very little was changing, but she wasn’t sure she believed it enough to help them to believe it. Hermione mostly felt relief, a relief born out of finally taking steps towards building a life with her boys that would span beyond the war. The proof that they were all growing up had to be hard on their parents. 

Hermione looked up from the letter to find her parents looking at her with ill-concealed interest. Hermione ventured, “I’ve just been invited to a party.”

Mum’s eyes lit up. She lived for proof that her child was an average teenager, not one of most powerful witches in the universe, who had very adult responsibilities and outlooks. “Oh, how wonderful!” She asked, “Is Harry giving one?”

Hermione sighed. Mum liked Harry’s ideas of parties, because they consisted of a chocolate cake made lovingly by the grumpy Grimmauld elf, and games of Quidditch, meaning that Hermione read books or, though her mother didn’t know it, found a cozy corner in which to canoodle with a pair of beaters who occasionally got out of playing. 

“No.” Hermione offered Lee’s owl a bit of veggie bacon, but he recoiled and took a sausage her father offered, “Lee’s giving a party for the shop and his birthday. He’s having a band.” She watched a look pass between her parents, and amended her statement, “I think it’s likely to be very low-key.”

“The eldest son of a pureblood family comes of age?” Dad asked, “And you think it’ll be low-key? You think Lee Jordan is low-key?” 

Hermione muttered, regretting ever letting her parents become culturally informed. “Well, compared to his friends, yes.” 

Dad leveled her with a stare, jabbing his fork in her direction. “And just who are his best friends?”

Hermione sipped her apple juice. She wasn’t going to get into it with her father. He evidently found Fred and George to be rather demonstrative young man. Which was to say, rather, that said young men had been observed recently in ardent demonstration of their affections.  Her father had come home for lunch and found them in something of a compromising position. Hermione had offered to obliviate her father, knowing that stumbling upon her straddling George’s hips and kissing Fred wasn’t something any of them had wanted him to see. Thankfully, clothes had been on and her father had backed out, and made all sorts of noise before entering again. 

He’d kept the memory, and scheduled Hermione for a chat that was now practically routine, muttering about a double shot of whisky and teeth cleaning. In the end, Hermione had escaped relatively unsullied with her parents and their frank discussions of sex. She had, once they discussed it, promised never to take their memories without consent. Even, as he said, it seemed a pleasant alternative. 

“I’d make sure we didn’t get into any trouble at the party.” Hermione promised. Well, she thought, she’d avoid actual trouble but not the potential for it. 

There was no real censure in Dad’s grumbling. He liked to grumble. It made him happy. “You there together are trouble.”

“Now, Matt, I thought the fireworks very sweet.” Mum cut into her tomato, a sly grin playing over her face. Lee’s owl accepted some of the tomato, and flew off with a flap of his wings, his snacks having fueled him for the journey ahead of him. 

Hermione wanted to bash her head on the kitchen cupboards. “They were testing a prototype.”

Her father grinned. He thought the boys were total sweethearts, Hermione knew, no matter what he banged on about behind their backs. “And the neighbors wanted to know why your name was written in the stars for two days!” 

Ignoring the discussion of fireworks, Hermione primly addressed her mother. “Mum, can I go to the party?”

“Oi!” Dad returned, “I’m not done riling you up.”

Hermione grinned at her father. She’d grown up with Ginny. Of course she knew a thing or two about getting back at annoying older men. 

“You may go to the party, Bunny.” Mum decided, “If, of course…”

Hermione hesitated, setting down her glass carefully. “If what?”

“If you buy a new dress.” Mum bargained. 

Hermione let her head fall into her hands, but knew better than protest. She hated shopping. She liked looking at clothes well enough, but battling her body to fit into things and look nice in them was another matter. She could charm things, sure, but it was the principle of the things. Not all clothes should be cut in the same way. Body diversity was important, and butting up against her own flaws in a dressing room was worse than facing Voldemort. 

Gently, in that joking way of his, Dad asked, “Miranda, why do we have a daughter who refuses to spend money on clothing?”

“Because she is uniquely herself.” Mum’s voice was filled with pride. It was enough to make Hermione’s heart swell and set aside her worries about clothes shopping, knowing that she was going to spend the day with her mother. 

Dad was never one to avoid the truth. “And because she spends the equivalent of a dental hygienist’s pay packet on books per month.”

“Are you quite through?” Hermione’s arched eyebrow and tone was enough to assert her displeasure with that exaggeration. 

“Surely, Death Wish.” Dad grinned, “Be sure to tell your young men that I’ll expect them to collect you and bring you back.”

Hermione looked between her parents. They wanted Fred and George to come to the door and wait downstairs chatting with Dad? What was this? Seriously? Hermione couldn’t believe it. “That’s horribly old-fashioned.”

“Would I miss an opportunity to mess with their heads, Bunny?” Her father grinned, leaving Hermione to better understand his motives, “Deny me not the small pleasures in life. I never got to scare a spotty boy away.” Her chewed his sausage, “By the time I realized what was what, they’d practically moved in and I found I liked them.”

“You’ve had such a hard life, Dad.” Hermione deadpanned, finishing her cold toast. 

“Woe, woe.” Her father agreed, drawing Mum’s hand to his forehead like a fainting maiden. “Tell me, doctor, shall I survive?” 

* * *

Hermione did not allow herself to feel nervous, though she knew that the boys felt twitchy. She met them at the door, pressing a gentle kiss to each of their mouths, “What’s up?”

“Nothing—” Fred began, looking entirely too freshly scrubbed. Was he blushing? 

George continued, “That concerns you—”

“If one wants to be totally technical.” Fred finished. 

Gazing at them appraisingly, she reminded them of something if which they needed no reminder. “I’m very good at getting around technicalities.” 

“Alas, while we love that about you, this is one—” Fred began, pulling one of her curls and letting it spring back into its coil, likely just annoy her. Not even the cat wanted to play with her hair. 

“Technicality that we won’t avoid." George informed he, a funny smile on her face. 

Hermione had the feeling that she was going to be pranked, very, very soon. She resolved thereby to be on the lookout for anything odd. 

“Go get dressed.” They intoned together, leaving Hermione to look down at her current outfit. 

“Imagine, Fred, wanting to be seen on the arms of two dashing wizards in a Smurfette t-shirt.” George sniffed. 

“Whatever would people say?” Fred wondered aloud, all shock. 

George concurred, sharing a look with his brother. “Whatever would they do?”

“I shaved my legs.” Hermione primly informed them, turning up the stairs. “There’s no way I’m wasting that on trakkies.” 

Hermione, as she got ready, felt the occasional flare of nervousness from Fred and George. She tried to poke just to see how she might help, until they started mentally humming shanty songs whenever the other was speaking. They did it in unison when her father or mother had anything to say. _A Drop Of Nelson's Blood_ over and over got a bit old, and Hermione understood that it was a mental ‘Hermione, keep out!’ sign. 

She tried, she really did. Privacy wasn't an easy thing when their were increasingly telepathic. 

She did manage to pick up their emotions, no matter what she did, and the flare of relief that washed over the both of them in tandem, as well as that of a profound love for her parents gave her pause just as she was settling the robes over her dress. It was clearly something they didn’t want her to know, so Hermione fluffed her curls and smiled unto herself. 

Hermione went over her mental checklist as she left her room. She peeked into her wristlet, and gripped it firmly, feeling quite ready. Hermione did her best to prepare her parents. They were good sports, but they were still her parents. She left the number of the venue, and promised that she would check in if she was going to be later than the agreed upon time, and promised she’d stick with the buddy system. 

Charming the velvet hairband in her hair as she moved down the corridor, she presented herself to her mother who was coming up the stairs with a funny look on her face, with the question, “Too witchy?”

“Very funny.” Mum replied, staring critically at her outfit. It had been purchased in Wizarding London at one of the women’s shops there, a bit more fashionable than Gladrags, suited to a young lady rather than a student knock about. “You look very nice.”

“Yes, well, I’d have to be dull as a bag of rocks not to pick up something from my roommates.” Hermione smoothed down the sheer outer robes. They were black, and ended at the hem of her dress, just above her knees and had bell sleeves. The robes tied at the waist, and swished when she moved, revealing the simple dress underneath. The dress Mum had loved on sight. It had grown on Hermione, its deep color seeming quite as though it might wash her out but doing the opposite. 

 Hermione looked down at her mary jane clad feet, and on an impulse, flicked her wand. She didn’t want to wear little girl shoes with such a lovely outfit. Somehow, they just didn’t suit anymore. 

They transfigured into chunky, block heels that covered her toes, and looked rather like oxfords. Her mother nodded approvingly. They were still sensible shoes, after all, and largely on the side of good taste. “Much better.” 

Her mother looked at her gently. “Now, I remember being almost sixteen quite well…”

“Mum, we’re going to be in public.” Hermione looked at her mother, quite unwilling to consider what her parents had got up to in their youth. 

“Actually, this isn’t the ‘please ward the room and use condoms’ discussion, this is the ‘please drink responsibly’ discussion.” Mum corrected her, “Remember that you are not accustomed to drinking, so if you drink, consume water, and mind your consumption. Never leave your drink alone and never let anyone else get you a drink.”

“Mum.” Hermione tried to set her mother at ease, “There’s spells to make sure a drink is safe.” The spells were passed around the dorms as a matter of course, “It’ll change colors if you’ve been roofied, but look, I wasn’t planning on having anything more than sneaking a few sips from—”

She had not planned on exactly mentioning that plan, though it seemed the most sensible. That way, she got to try things, see what she liked, without technically breaking any laws, unless she got drunk, which she did not totally plan on doing. 

“That’s probably a decent plan.” Mum replied, “Thank you for being honest. If they need to crash here, they can.” She grinned, “Don’t apparate and drink, right?” 

“You’re remarkably calm about the prospect of my imbibing.” Hermione mused, letting her mother slide past her through the doorway, where she grabbed a bit of loo roll and dabbed her eyes. 

“If Daddy and I have raised you well enough to handle yearly brushes with death, we think you can decide what to put in your body.” Mum asserted, turning half-around as she headed to the stairs again, “Just stay safe, and hydrated. If you need us, Daddy and I will come and get you.”

“In Ireland?” Hermione blurted, "Have you been crying?" 

“I’ve got Sirius on speed-Floo.” Mum assured her. “He can pop there in a split second, and you know he would. I doubt you’d want Molly collecting you from a party if things got sticky.”

“She’s not exactly happy with the twins taking Sirius’s offer.” Hermione confided, “She’s been slipping Ministry applications under their doors.”

“She’ll get over it.” Mum assured her, “Give her ten years, and she’ll say, ‘Have you met my sons, they’re very successful and I always knew they would be, right from the first time they blew their bedrooms to smithereens.’ It’s the way of mothers.” 

“Well, I’m going to be an advocate.” Hermione reminded her mother, “Do prepare yourself for having a boring legal professional for a daughter.” 

“I’ll just forget that you’re the inventor of a good many products in this catalog, shall I?” Mum sniffed, “Boring, she says.” Mum heard Dad coming toward the stairs, and so called out, “Matthew, come here. Our child has declared herself boring and I must take to my bed to recover from the shock.”

Dad dutifully appeared in the doorway, eating a Jammy Dodger. “Boring?” He glanced around the entry, “Bunny?”

Mum assured him, “Just so.”

“Never.” Dad gasped. 

“I am surrounded by drama queens.” Hermione smiled, “Why am I the most sensible person in my family?”

Mum informed her, “All teenage girls think they’re sensible. It’s part of having an underdeveloped brain.” 

“My brain is superior!” Hermione asserted, tugging at the bond but getting only sly bits of information back, “Where are they? And what did you do to them?”

“Do?” Her father asked, “Me? Why should it be your concern?” He chided her gently, “Perhaps they each wanted a teeth cleaning, have you ever paused to consider their dentition?”

Hermione crossed her arms. “I’m not stupid.”

Her father sang, “What do we do with a nosey parker?” to the tune of Drunken Sailor. 

Without missing a beat, Hermione replied in the same fashion, “Tell her what you’ve been doing, tell her what you’ve been doing, tell her what you’ve been doing…” 

Her father laughed, and Hermione headed to the back garden to pop away to the party. She hoped her parents were having a good laugh over her being out of the loop. 

* * *

The questions she’d planned to ask fled her mind as they landed at the point just inside a doorway, near a flight of stairs. The concert venue, used mostly for smaller muggle shows, was now host to a wizarding band and DJ, who seemed to be favoring some kind of music that sounded vaguely traditional and yet with grooving, danceable, beats. 

his was not an uncommon trend in their community. As they walked down the stairs, Hermione realized that the song being played as a club music was nothing other than _Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye._

It appeared that Lee had rented out the the place. It wasn’t an uncommon approach in Wizarding communities, as they often rented the place out privately and then passed the hat to cover the fees if tickets weren’t sold by the company acting as the intermediary.

At the bottom of the steps, they checked in at the door and were let through into a huge room with a stage at one end, with a band boasting a fiddle and drums in the middle of the set. Sure and enough, there was a hat by the door. Though it wasn’t obligatory at a party, Hermione saw George, who was closer to it, drop a few bills into the derby to cover any bar costs. 

It seemed like every student from Hogwarts above the fifth year had packed the place. The crowd ran heavily to Lions, and light on Snakes, but all houses were represented. Lee never had any shortage of friends. Fred cut a swath through the crowd where the man of the hour was holding court.

Over the music, he greeted them enthusiastically. With a wink at her, he leaned in and shouted, “Go wild!” 

Hermione laughed, and patted his arm gently, letting a few sparks build up under her fingers. With a returning wink, she said, “Happy Birthday, Lee! Your gift’s at home.”

He chuckled and lifted his beer in salute, giving his attention to his best friends. 

The twins wrapped up their conversations with Lee, and their hands found their way to the soft flesh of her waist. Hermione leaned into that support, so very glad, that tonight, they had made the choice to be a bit more open and visible. Just a little, perhaps even less than their monogamous friends, but in a way that wasn’t so guarded and careful. 

They were laying the foundation for their return to school. She wasn’t going to say that she hadn’t at least tried not to shock people. Where better to test the waters than a largely dark music venue, where people were mostly wrapped up in their own little worlds? Where better to set the stage for introducing their friends to their relationship than outside of school? 

And so, they mixed and mingled, dropping the six inch rule that had governed their public persona for the first time in front of their friends. Hermione felt the bond shine brightly within her, and knew that they all felt free and easy and light in a way the zinged and zipped down the bond. It was an elemental rightness and pleasure that had little to do with their surroundings and everything to do with who they were with in this place. 

Awhile later, George was sipping a firewhisky, standing behind her and moving gently as they stood near dancing bodies, mostly by the bar. Hermione stole a sip of Fred’s mixed drink, and leaned into his touch when he caught a drip on the corner of her mouth with the pad of his thumb, while George’s thumb rubbed slow circles on the swell of her hip where his hand rested comfortably. 

Hermione shivered when Fred trailed his thumb over her bottom lip before drawing his hand way. Her pulse skittered when George’s hand, warm and confident and sure, slipped between her outer robes and the thin fabric of her summer dress. She could feel the potion-maker’s callouses on his hand, just as she had felt them on Fred’s thumb. 

Hermione caught her breath on a sharp inhale when somebody jostled into Fred. Though he easily stood his ground, it was enough to shake her out of her fantasies. Hermione looked and saw that Alicia and Angelina had bumped into him. 

Alicia waved in apology as she stepped closer to Fred.

Hermione put her hand over George’s a silent request to leave it there, if he was fine with doing so. They gentle tightening of his grasp said enough, so she let her hand fall, and in doing so, twined her fingers together with Fred, palm to palm. 

She was relatively certain the action wasn’t missed by their friends, even in the dimly lit room. Angelina shared a look with Katie. Hermione couldn’t read it in the darkness, but she wondered, not for the first time, just how she felt about George. She was relatively certain it was George Angelina liked, and not Fred, but it was hard to be entirely certain. Knowing it was none of her business, Hermione had never asked. 

Feeling like she might need the courage to wade through this conversation, she nodded hello, and stole a sip of George’s firewhisky.

Angelina and Alicia, after laughing and taking a bit, went on their way to dance wildly. The song soon shifted to yet another folk song, this time with an electronic sound provided by the DJ that contrasted the traditional instruments on the stage that should have been discordant but truly was clever and infectious. 

Taking George’s hand, she pulled them both out onto the floor to join the fray. They moved and spun and laughed and sang, even if Hermione did stumble over the lyrics of some songs that seemed vaguely French, until the band raised their fiddles, with backing of a mixing DJ, sang a four on the floor version of _MacPherson's Rant._  

* * *

 

They were just short of drunk when they landed in the back garden. Hermione had to contend with Fred’s hands roving over her flesh and George pressing warm and consuming kisses to her mouth as she fumbled with her clutch and sought out the keys. The contents of her bag scattered at her feet, hitting the pavers with thuds. She didn't mind their attentions, naturally.  

Unable to find them, she muttered, “Fuck it.” She waved a hand and the locks slid open, and they moved inside. She locked the door again with a gasp as her senses filled with the awareness of warm and aroused bodies against her own. Fighting for sensibility, Hermione muttered, “Colloportus!” 

“Smart witch.” Fred’s tone was full of awe and laughter, which was just how she liked him. His hands, warm and sure and so very male, slid gently up her thighs.

Hermione leaned against George, who bore her shaking body with a certain level of satisfaction that Hermione knew to be increasing. George vanished her bra. “Smart me.”

Hermione laughed, which turned into a giggle when she realized that it was almost three in the morning, and they had to be really, really, really quiet. She told her boys this, and they laughed at the absurdity of it. 

“Shhh!” Hermione intoned seriously, kissing the flesh she uncovered when she pulled at buttons. She wanted desperately to drop to her knees, because she loved that, but she had the presence of mind to realize that they were a bit pissed. She wasn’t going to do anything they couldn’t consent to receiving.

“D’you remember how angry my parents were the last time we woke them up.” She laughed, “They were so angry.” 

They moved through the house, nearly knocking over a potted plant by the stairs. In between kisses, they stumbled up the stairs. Somehow, her robes were off, and then George was helping her up the stairs. 

He looked at her with such love in his eyes,“Yeah, but Kitten, they knew we’d be late tonight.”

Fred agreed, “Y’Dad told me we could crash here.”

Hermione opened the right door, thank Merlin, and found herself pressed up against it. Very seriously, Fred asked, “Kitten, who’s the Prime Minister?” 

Hermione kissed him, because he was hers and he was so, so, so beautiful. After a long moment, she pulled back and said, “John Major, why?”

George grinned in that unexpectedly wicked way of his, “Just checking. Go to the loo, baby.”

“I hate it when you call me baby.” Hermione looked at him askance, kicking off her shoes and losing the little bit of height they had provided her. “I’m not five. You know I hate infantilization.”

He lowered the zip on her dress, “Why do you think I do it?”

“Likes you riled up, he does.” Fred asserted, as though George were alone in the matter, even Fred's fingers were skating down her bare back. He’d shucked his shirt. 

Her mouth dried. They needed to be sober. 

“This being drunk thing is fun, but where’s the sober up?” Hermione was never so glad for the loo next to her room. She zipped in there, and noticed that there were two doppleganger shadows following her, “I can’t be blotto with you both in my bed.”

Fred shut the door, asking. “So, either you could be hung over?”

“Or have two fabulously sexy wizards in your bed?” George grinned. 

“But not both?” Fred slanted a glance at George. 

“Both would just be indulgently wicked, and simultaneously and utterly defeat the goal of further wickedness.” Hermione agreed, spitting out her toothpaste. She left a red and a blue toothbrush on the counter, and opened the cabinet again. “I’m a good girl, you know. Not even a little bit wicked.”

George brushed his teeth, squeezing into the sink area along with Fred, “The lies you believe, Kitten.”

“Shh, George, don’t dissuade her.” Fred swished his mouth with oral rinse, and spat it out, “If she thinks she’s not wicked, who are we to contradict her?”

Teeth clean, Hermione moved to the next shelf in the cabinet of what was essentially her own toilet. On the second, she had several vials, one she took nightly without fail ever since she had determined it to be rather practical. It had been a relief to tell her mother that she was already taking care of it when she’d broached the subject early this summer. 

Hermione swallowed her potion. She knew they knew what it was. It was a simple third-year potion, even if the third years did giggle when they were introduced to the topic. Thankfully, it was McGonagall who oversaw that lesson, and not Snape. Hermione couldn’t imagine Snape talking to a bunch of spotty girls about safe sex. 

She rinsed the vial and put it back in the holder. “I’m smart.”  

Fuck.” She looked in the cabinet, “We haven’t any sober up. I’ve got like a year’s supply of pepper up and contraceptives, but not a single sober up?”

“That’s because you were sober when you brewed.” Fred allowed, “You’re very logical when you’re sober. Goody Goody Granger doesn’t imbibe.” 

“Do you two have any?” Hermione rolled her eyes, “Because Goody Goody Granger has an attic to clean tomorrow and we’ve got to meet everyone at Grimmuald.” 

“We’re regular scouts, love.” George tossed her a vial, “Ditch the dress and come to bed.”

Hermione wondered if an Queen's Scout said such things to their beloveds. She considered it unlikely. 

Hermione swallowed the potion, and tripped over a pile of books as a warmth suffused her brain. They fell over onto her floor with a resounding _thunk,_ still too inebriated to catch them, as the potion took time to work. 

The three people watched them fall, and froze when Mum called out, “Bunny, put away your books and go to bed. You can read tomorrow.” Clearly she was still asleep, and responding to a frequent happening without lifting her head from the pillow. 

Hermione took a chance, “Sure, Mum!” She was beginning to feel sober, and so she switched out her loosened dress for a nightdress, and crawled into her bed. She shoved a pillow towards George’s third of the bed, and made sure Fred would have enough blankets when they finished changing, before she fell into a dreamless sleep. 

* * *

 

In the morning, she woke to all manner of banging and slamming and singing coming from the kitchen, in time with Mick Jagger going on about driving through Bakersfield. 

Hermione groaned, and pulled Fred’s pillow over her head. George’s hand was under her bunched up nightgown, his fingers resting over her heart. Fred’s leg was over hers, and he had wrapped an arm around her in the night.

She was just about asleep again when the radio in the kitchen increased in volume. Fred and George were dead asleep as she stumbled out of their bed, and went to the loo, and brushed her teeth.

The racket continued as she made her way down the stairs. Her father was singing, "So if you're down on your luck..."

She popped her head into the kitchen, and saw her father there at the stove. “Good afternoon, my darling daughter delinquent.’ Her father grinned, and turned up the radio, “Don’t you just love Mick Jagger?”

Hermione silenced the radio with a wave of her hand. “Ugh.” 

Her father grinned, “Have some water!" He ran the tap at full blast. Hermione shut it off with the blink of her eyelids and the force of her will, “Or not.”

Hermione sipped the water. “What’s with the racket? It’s not even eleven.” 

“Hermione Jane,” Her father grinned, reproving but not punishingly so, “You danced the night away, and drank like a fish, probably, and so you would naturally sleep until four in the afternoon.”

“Four?” Hermione sobered in an instant. “Four P.M.?” 

This was not good. This was horrible. Oh, no. She looked to the clock. The hands were unmistakable, even as her father spoke. 

“Well, 3:42.” Her father informed her, “Why?”

But she was already running down the hall, and throwing herself up the stairs. “Hey!” She yelled, “Get up! It’s 3:45 and we’ve got to be there by four! Oh, fucking hell!”

“Language!” Her father shouted, turning off Mick Jagger mid-note. “You’d better bippity boppity move your butts!” 

As she ran, she heard her father chuckling to himself. Now was not the time for dad jokes. 

Hermione did not reply, for she was already skittering into her room and ripping the covers off her bed. She didn’t even have time to appreciate the perfectly formed specimens of wizarding kind in her bed.

“We’ve got to get going.” She waved her hand to let natural light flood the room, ignoring the protests of her men, “Your Mum is expecting us.”

Hermione grabbed clothes as Fred rolled off of the bed and George sat up, the barest mention of angering their mother when she was so annoyed at them urging them into action. That was the last thing they all needed, not to mention the thousand questions they’d get if they were late. It was the Weasley way, to shame latecomers into obedience and shame. 

She ran into the bathroom and ran the tap as fast as she could, heating the water magically as she dashed under the spray. She was in and out in a record time, unable to even touch her hair. She didn’t even turn off the tap before someone was knocking on the door and telling her to leave it on. 

Hermione shoved herself into clothes, and narrowly avoided falling over as she yanked up her wide-legged, narrow hipped jeans. Why the hell had she bought narrow-hipped jeans, when she had the pelvic structure of a hippo?

After yanking up her bottoms, Hermione threw on a dimity blouse that was vaguely Victorian, and tied up her hair hastily as the twins dressed. 

Within ten minutes, they were racing down the stairs like a herd of buffalo. Her father stood in the kitchen door, laughter plain on his face, sipping coffee, “Oh, this is comic gold.” 

Hermione stuck her wand in her messy bun and shrugged on a pair of flats she’d left in the hall yesterday out of sheer sloth. “I’m glad,” She intoned, fixing her rumpled shirt, praising whatever deity that had governed her choices that her bra was nude. “That you find this so funny.” 

George flung himself down the stairs, his shoes tying themselves as he moved. “You fucking wanker, you used the last of the rinse.” 

“My mouth was cotton, okay?” Fred defended himself.

“Fight it out later!” Hermione declared, grabbing her wallet. “I don’t care, just don’t make me late so I have to explain to Molly that you rolled out my bed not fifteen minutes ago.”

“Yeah, because that’ll go over like a lead balloon.” Dad offered, “Have to say, your poor Mum had palpitations when she checked on you this morning.” 

“I’ll apologize later.” Hermione patted her backside, wondering if she’d forgotten to put on knickers, but found that worry to be needless. “We were totally pissed. And I forgot that sober-up knocks you flat unless you eat with it.”

“That’s why God invented drunk food.” Her father sagely nodded. He said his goodbyes to the boys, and continued on, “Or Merlin. Is Merlin God?” 

“It’s complicated.” Hermione replied, following her boys to the garden. “But not as complicated as my life.”

“Oh…” Her father mused, “To be a teenager, and think that my life is complicated again. Drunkenness, Debauchery, and Drama.” 

“You forgot Dark Lords and Death Wishes!” Hermione called out by way of farewell. 


	10. Summer 1995

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part two of Summer '95.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, Samhain, All Hallow's Eve, Reformation Day, or Monday!
> 
> I quoted OoP. 
> 
> Also Shirley Chisholm. 
> 
> Fade to black, but you've been warned.

They arrived at Grimmuald just as the clock in the hall was striking the top of the hour. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, and took a look around, and noted that everyone was gathered in the next room. Hermione heard voices, Dumbledore’s and Minerva’s most clearly. Before Hermione could decipher anything further, Molly bustled out of the drawing room, and embraced her sons and Hermione in turn. 

Hermione returned her greetings. “Yes, we had a very busy morning. Sorry we’re almost late.”

They were saved by Charlie’s arrival. Hermione sent him a hidden smile of thanks. Dumbledore came to the open doorway, and gestured happily to Molly and Charlie. He flicked a gaze over Hermione and George and Fred. “Miss Granger, Messrs. Weasley, you will find the other children above stairs.” 

“We should be in there.” Hermione spoke her convictions clearly and without hesitation. She had been increasingly aware, all summer, of how they were being left out of choices and decisions that, in the end would come down to them. They had agreed between them that now was the time to change it. “Don’t you agree, Sir?”

His gaze was chilly. “I do not. Good day to you, Miss Granger.” His blue eyes lost all their twinkle, “You will be addressed when it is time, have no fear.”

Hermione grinned. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t even a little bit frightened. She was angry. It was not Dumbledore’s job to dictate to her. All her life, she had played the game with half the deck, and because of it, Harry had almost died, and her boys had been badly injured. She’d lost count of the times she’d almost died. Even just as recently as this Spring, she’d been captured, unable to fight back with information. 

Never again was that going to happen. Never. 

Dumbledore shut the door. 

 Hermione thought it quite odd. They had spent the summer building up a business, years being the front line of this war that only now were people getting off their arses about, no matter what she and Fred and George had tried to say, tried to do to sound the alarm. 

Now, just when they were on the cusp of adulthood after years of being forced to carry on with adult tasks. And now, now they were being shut out when it was them that ensured they would all live to see this moment. A door they had enabled to be opened had just been slammed very firmly in their faces. They were expected to stay out, Mrs. Weasley had said, because there were no children allowed in meetings. They were expected to go upstairs with Ron and Ginny and Harry. 

She shared a look with Fred and George. They could put their lives on the line time and time again, and yet they were shut out? Not on her watch, not now and not ever.

 They weren’t guns or wands to be put aside when they weren’t needed. They weren’t tools, weren’t mindless drones, weren’t weapons for Dumbledore’s greater good. For the first time, true fury raced through her soul as she realized that they had been trained like an organ grinder’s monkey to preform on command without asking for details. Her main problem was with Dumbledore, but she was hurt by Remus’s duplicity. 

Hermione advanced, opening the door before it could be warded against them. There came a time when they needed to stand as one against the tide, and she knew that the time had come. They entered the breakfast room, and looked at the people shuffling around, finding spots at an oak table, forming a circle meant to exclude them.  

The room fell silent. Tonks, Sirius’s cousin, who was wearing a _Black Sheep_ t-shirt, stared. McGonagall looked faintly suspect, in that way that told Hermione she was not surprised to see them. Remus himself seemed of like mind. Hermione did not let herself look towards Molly or Arthur. 

Dumbledore looked thunderous, “Miss Granger! You have been informed time and again this summer that you are not welcome in this room.” He included George and Fred in his icy glare, “You may be seventeen, but you cannot join the Order until you graduate. Please make your apologies to those assembled, and excuse yourselves.” 

Make her apologies? Was she supposed to apologize for all the things they had done to keep everyone in this room alive and safe? Was she supposed to apologize for every time some part of their bond had kept utter destruction at bay? Hermione’s blood boiled, but her words were cool. “I read somewhere that only a fool disregards resources out of hand because his former tactics worked.”  She thought of Dorcas, Fabian, and Gideon, and added, “But, then again, maybe they didn’t?”

“Hermione!” A few voices called out in shock. She looked at Molly and Arthur then, and saw that they were staring back. Molly’s face was bloodless, Arthur’s carefully guarded. 

Dumbledore countered, looking at them over the half-moon of his spectacles. “Miss Granger, you overstep yourself.”

“And you would send children, as you call us, to lead the charge, without informing them, without including them.” Hermione’s truth was harsh, she knew. She made her point, knowing that this could be the only time she could make it with the fullness needed. “This isn’t about Harry. It’s not my place to assert that he, of all people should be in this room.”

She had, over the summer, come to the conclusion that even though she didn’t feel Harry was ready, he had no choice. Sirius and Remus had other ideas. She looked to them, and continued, before looking back at Dumbledore, whose twinkle had reached epic proportions, “He’s got parents. This is about the fact that you know what you see standing before.”

Dumbledore colored. He, like many others of his generation, found the outright discussion of triadic bonds disconcerting, even though he was perfectly content to turn them into perfect little Death Eater killing machines. 

Hermione came to her point, “We feel it only fair to inform the Order that we will be of little help to you unless we are read in.” She lifted her head gently, “You will make your choices.”

People around the room gasped, but Hermione did not let her gaze waver. 

Dumbledore shot to his feet. Hermione felt the magic in her hair begin to crackle as he said, “I will not be blackmailed by a schoolgirl.”

George’s hand brushed her arm, absorbing his share of the magic she was passing along. “She’s not, Professor.”

“She’s simply warning you that, if you ignore us, and push us aside knowing what you do, that it will certainly mean our deaths.” Fred informed the Headmaster, “We will, of course, make choices about what we’re going to do in any given situation keeping this in mind.”

Hermione elaborated, “We’re not putting each other at any more risk than necessary.”

“And though Hermione would fight to the death for you, at your merest insistence, we won’t.” George informed the Headmaster of something that not even Hermione had known. This was an opinion that, according to the bond, they shared. It was one, however, that neither man had ever expressed to Hermione. She couldn’t understand it, but she could feel their commitment to this truth. 

Fred clarified, and as he did, Hermione’s confusion evaporated, “We will do anything for Harry, but if you think we’re putting her at greater risk in the name of the Greater Good without knowing what it is, and having some say in defining it, you’re wrong.”

Molly had tears in her eyes as she reproved them from behind the table. “That’s a bold stance to take when we’re faced with his plans for a post-war society.” 

“Molly…” Arthur replied, “Maybe we aren’t really protecting them by keeping them in the dark any longer.” 

Hermione knew that the twins were thinking of the same people as their parents. Dorcas, Fabian, and Gideon were alive in this room, just as present as they would have been had they lived. They all knew it that the memories encapsulated their words and opinions like no one else ever could, even James and Lily. 

“As we see it, without Hermione, we all signing our death warrants anyway.” Fred answered his mother, and through the bond, Hermione felt his compassion rise, lifting up what they all knew to be right. Though it hurt, and was scary, the time to hide in the shadows was past. “Remus knows. McGonagall knows. Charlie knows. You and Dad know.” 

George looked to Dumbledore, “Ask them, right now, if you can’t believe what we’re telling you.” 

Dumbledore hesitated, “Boys—”

“For Merlin’s sake, Albus.” Moody growled, his magical eye whirling as he slammed the table, “Are you going to make them say it? And stuff your arguments about their ages. She’s been legally recognized as an adult since April first, or has nobody bothered to tell them that?” 

Hermione shared a look with her boys. No one had told her, or them, that fact. She looked to Remus and noted that he looked away. 

He had known. Even something as small as her legal majority, he had hidden. What other secrets did he carry within him, away from them? Hesitating with the truth could mean their lives or their deaths just as a single hesitation with a spell might. 

“Budge up, Charlie.” Fred insisted, “We’ve brought our folding chairs.” 

“Can you please quote American politicians later?” Charlie moved his wooden chair to the left. 

“I’m sure he doesn’t know what you mean.” George returned, “And shush. Dumbledore was talking.” 

Hermione crossed her ankles, and nodded to Remus. They would be discussing this later. Fred and George sat down beside her. Dumbledore’s tone was icy, “I will not offer you Order membership, because I question your loyalty.”

“How dare you!” Tonks was on her feet. “How can you—”

“If you knew what I knew, Dora, you would never blame me.” Dumbledore returned, “Their loyalty is to one another, above all else.”

“They’ve been there for Harry more than I have, and I’m a member.” Tonks insisted, “Seems to me you’re afraid of people you can’t control.”

“I do not seek control.” Dumbledore thundered, “I seek respect and obedience. I have been shown nothing of the sort since Miss Granger came in here, nor with her sticking her nose into affairs that don’t concern her all summer, and it is within my rights to weigh her suitability.”

“It’s alright, Tonks.” Hermione insisted, knowing desperately that her point could be overshadowed by anger. She did not want that to happen, for it would discredit them and their points.  

“He trusted trusted her, trusted us, enough—” Fred observed. 

“To turn us into assassins and weapons, let’s be clear on that, though.” George finished. 

“Enough to take what we are to win this war, couching it in terms of survival, never once asking us if we wanted to step up to the firing line and be the ones to lead the charge.” Fred added, “We would stand with Harry no matter what, but let’s not beat around the bush.”

“By our reckoning, we finished Auror training two years ago.” George noted, “Isn’t that right, Remus?” 

Remus said nothing.

Hermione noticed the looks of shock on the faces of the Order members. 

“What?” Fred asked, “You think just because we’re pranksters who hang around with a social justice advocate that we aren’t capable of being serious?”

“They’ve always been serious where it counts.” Hermione affirmed, “We’ll leave when you ask, Professor, but you all know this war is escalating, and if it’s to be us on the line, we’ve a right to be here.” 

Dumbledore scowled. “It seems if I do not let you in here, that half my Order will leave to follow you.”

“I don’t seek your position, Professor.” Hermione replied, “Only the respect due us in accordance with the things we have done for this Order on the front lines before you even determined there to be a war.” Hermione stared back, “We have insights. We can help.” 

Dumbledore stared her down. Hermione felt him rattling against her shields, and smiled. “If you’ve questions, Professor, we’re happy to answer them.”

He was defeated, and he knew it. Dumbledore ceased pushing at her wards, and sat down. After a long second, he snapped, “Arabella, continue your report.” 

An elderly lady wearing a jumper with a cat on the front even in the summer’s heat, began to speak. Under the table, Hermione felt two hands slide into her own as pride and respect zinged down the bond. In response, she sent back a wave of gratitude. It was, after all, them who had told her never to listen to people in power when they were wrong. 

Hermione wondered who she might be, if she was trusting of people in power, if she was unable to see that those in authority had a great capacity to abuse and misuse the trust placed in them. Though her anger was directed towards the Headmaster, her pain was centered on Remus. 

* * *

They were dismissed relatively quickly, but Hermione hoped it was a start.

Keen to draw a line between them and the children upstairs, they waited in the drawing room. Communication was swift, silent, and elemental between them. The Headmaster was less of an ally than they had assumed, even with his years of lack of support, interest, and involvement, even when they had needed him most. 

It was Remus who had betrayed them. It was Remus who, if nothing else, owed them the truth. They’d assumed his motivations to be pure. There was such trust between them, or there had been. After all, Remus was the one who had taught them so much about their magic, Remus who had listened to them scream and cry and yell and helped them to pick up the pieces, Remus who knew so much about their private lives that the sum total of what he might have passed on to the Headmaster did not bear consideration. 

It was George who insisted that Remus deserved a chance to elaborate and defend himself. Hermione, after some back and forth, came to understand his position, even she did want to cut Remus out of their lives. He had come after her boys, and if nothing else, for that Hermione wanted to stake him through the heart like the emotional vampire he was. 

But, if many brushes with death had taught her anything, it had taught her that when there was a chance to speak, it was best to take it. She decided, after some mental discussion, that she would approach Remus alone, no matter the protests she received in light of that decision. George was likely to stare at him in silence until he caved, and Fred was likely to demand information. Hermione hoped that she might be best equipped to take a middle ground with their as of now former mentor. 

Hermione thereby moved into the room as the meeting disbanded, the Headmaster shooting her a cold stare before he noticed that she had noticed him, and his stare evened out. The room emptied as Remus lingered, packing up his briefcase. 

He knew what was coming, then. 

Hermione stood by the door she’d warded, and waited until he spoke. When he did, Hermione’s anger flared, dark and sharp. “I hope you’re not here to vent about some perceived slight.” 

“No!” She hissed, “You don’t get to do this now. You don’t get to play the victim. You don’t get to play at being our ally when, all along, you were someone else’s eyes and ears. The things you know, the things you must have told him—” 

Hermione broke off, ashamed and enraged. The things she alone had confided in him, the questions she alone had asked him were enough to make her face flame. 

Had Remus told Dumbledore about her adolescent angst, about her growing power, about the confusion and elation that was so fundamentally private? She could just imagine the laughs and jokes over cups of tea. “The laughs you two must have had.” 

Remus, damn him, looked torn being proud and being hurt. After all these years, she could read his face well. This realization made her angry. She knew him still, and yet she had never expected this. She did not expect his question, “Will you give me no chance to defend myself?”

“You were silent!” Hermione yelled, “You were silent when we needed you, silent when we thought your trust to be absolute, silent when we needed an ally.” Hermione’s voice was scathing, biting with emotion and truth. Maybe this was a bit of Fred’s anger bleeding through, and George’s hurt, but it summed up how she felt quite well, “You are a horrible person, because you gave us the illusion of those things, but none of the reality.”

It was the worst thing she could think to call him, because up until he’d sat there, silent and stone faced in the midst of trouble, Hermione had thought him one of the best people she had ever known. one of the kindest, most supportive people she had ever met. Remus had been her teacher, her friend, and her closest confidant outside of her boys. Though it might seem like an odd relationship, it had been forged by flames. 

Hermione, until now, had thought it unassailable. 

“I was silent in that meeting, Hermione, because you did not need me to speak in your stead.” Remus contradicted her, “You stood on your own. You faced a challenge and you overcame it without a single spell.” He set down a file folder in his briefcase, “Do you know what that makes you?” 

Hermione hated her honesty. She hated the tone of his voice. She wanted to scream, to yell, to feel justified in what she knew she had to do, for her own sake and for that of the men she loved. Instead, she bit out. “Fools, for trusting you.”

It wasn’t petty, Fred insisted mentally, to want him to hurt as they hurt. George’s pain was bleeding away to a rock solid assurance that Remus had been wrong. 

“It makes you strong, Hermione.” Remus countered, “It means I have done my job. I have taught you when to fight, and how to fight, no matter the battle. If nothing else I am satisfied by what I’ve seen today.”

“I’m a strong puppet.” Hermione agreed, speaking for the first time the utter realization of just how expertly they had been played. They’d had no power, no agency until the moment they realized that they were nothing more than tools, and began to wrest it away from Dumbledore, and now, it seemed, his eyes and ears in their midst. “Did you get a sick thrill out of watching us play into Dumbledore’s hand?”

“You do realize, Hermione, that had anyone else done what you did today, they would have been obliviated and tossed out of Grimmauld?” Remus queried in the same way that he had for years, as though he could not believe she had missed something so obvious, “If you can see the man everyone thinks as the second coming of Merlin as a complex human being as capable of being wrong and call him out on it with such intent that even he has no escape,” Remus continued, a smirk growing on his face, “Tell me, Hermione, what will you be able to do when you see evil masquerading as good, or just plain evil staring you in the face?” 

Shock, pure shock, echoed three times in her soul. Through the bond was shock and rage and anger and complete and total admiration for genius in the space of a single moment. Hermione’s whole understanding of Remus Lupin shifted in that moment. 

It had been a test. It had been a test. 

She exhaled, a new, tiny flame of anger and wonder surging up within her. “You said there would be no tests.”

“I said the only tests would be survival.” Remus disagreed, “And unlike a great many who have crossed his path, you survived Albus Dumbledore.” 

“I…” And thus, everything made sense. She did not know what to say. Remus John Lupin had crossed Dumbledore, day in and day out, to give them a fighting chance. She just somehow knew that all those meetings with Dumbledore had been little more than fencing matches, with Remus holding the Headmaster at bay. 

Hermione realized, in tandem with the young men listening to the conversation and seeing it through the windows into her soul, that Remus was a master. He had played the Headmaster, and yes, them, in an effort to empower them, in an effort to help them find their own footing and dwell in their own power. 

Hermione did not know what to say. “I…” 

“I trust you and I have not been alone in this conversation.” Remus continued, locking up his briefcase, “And that I need not repeat myself, because we have merely been discussing your upcoming coursework in DADA.” 

Remus wasn’t done, it seemed, by half. Except now, now they were in on it. It was a hell of a way to show his hand and keep himself looking like a good little werewolf teacher to Dumbledore, but he had quite pulled it off. They wouldn’t jeopardize it. “Of course.”

Remus revealed something that made Hermione’s heart hurt. “I’m just meant to teach you how to fight.”

Even after everything, everything he had done over the span of decades for Dumbledore and for the Order, it seemed that his mentor did not see his value or his importance. 

“You’ve done more than that, you know that.” In the silence of this room, Hermione knew she had to speak the unquestionable truth. Even when she had been terribly angry and monstrously hurt, she had never once questioned what he had done for them over the years.

“Of course.” Remus agreed, “I taught you three how to win.”

That he had done. That he had done in word, and now she knew, in deed. She had never once stopped to consider what being their mentor meant for Remus, beyond all of the actual time he gave up out of his own life to train them, educate them, protect them, and love them. He had done so much. He had accepted them. 

Now, she knew, wasn’t the time for that talk. Her heart, and the bond within her, was far too full of emotion. Even now they were trying to get past the wards.  

Hermione’s eyes filled with tears. “Does this mean I don’t have to run a 10k tomorrow?”

“Not on your life.” He glanced at the door, “They’re about ten seconds from breaking down the door. Do save my wainscoting, won’t you?”

Hermione turned, and threw herself bodily into waiting arms. As he had done a thousand times, Remus slipped from the room. He saw everything, Hermione knew, but it wasn’t time for that discussion. Hermione knew that time would come. If brushes with death had taught her anything, it had taught her that life was meant to be lived, and one could always hope for tomorrow. 

* * *

Despite the progress she’d felt they’d made with Dumbledore, the single meeting they’d been able to join had been the only one they’d entered as the weeks passed. It seemed Dumbledore was simply not telling them when meetings were, and even though they used every tool and prototype they had to ferret out details, none were revealed in their hearing. 

Unable to do anything else, they confronted Remus, only to realize as he shook his head and bit out words of evasion that Dumbledore had spelled them all to secrecy. Hermione prayed for calm, and thanked Remus, going on her way. If this was how Dumbledore wanted to play it, well, he had a formidable opponent in a former ally. 

Hermione, through the papers and through the bits and bobs she gleaned, that there was some amount of trouble at the Ministry. Harry, in a right state of panic at his birthday party, elaborated on his letters, which revealed that he had been questioned at length about the tournament. He’d assured her that he’d painted himself out to be a fool, and said nothing of her. Hermione was simply glad that his father’s influence and standing in the community prevented an actual trial. That would have been nothing short of a disaster. 

As August rolled along, Hermione spent much of her time lost in thought, considering what was to be done about Dumbledore. It helped that she spent a great deal of her thinking time cleaning and organizing the shop. She had learned very quickly how to stock a shelf and how to magically update the inventory and stocking list. 

It had been decided that they would wait at least until Christmas to open the doors. The point of fact was that the idea of running a new business before they had a handle on school and the war brewing around them was a bit much, even for them. That said, the mail order arm easily paid the pittance of a rent, so it was not a true hardship to keep the shop waiting. 

The shop was clean, finally, and gleamed with wonder and magic, even as it smelled sharply of wood polish and lemon cleaner. Hermione came around one comfortably wide aisle, and stared at the long wooden counter, with two registers on each end, noticing something on the boxes there that didn’t quite register with her. She looked up to clear her vision and then stopped short when she saw the wall. 

The same logo was there, and it was new. Hermione stared at the logo on the wall for a long moment. It hadn’t been there ten minutes ago when she’d went in the back, but now it was everywhere, on the front of packages, on the wall over the registers, everywhere a logo might be, there it was, proudly proclaiming its truths that went far beyond the shop.  

Hermione’s heart thudded. She was entirely certain that she wasn’t having a stroke, but she felt lightheaded and incredibly humbled. 

She looked around the shop as she heard her boys clatter inside from a busy Alley, likely removing the disillusions from the logo outside the shop now they had revealed it to her. She looked at them, and her heart swelled with such love, and such trust, that it literally stopped them both in their tracks. She saw their reactions on their faces, felt it spill from their souls into hers, and into one another. 

There didn’t need to be words, but she said them anyway as they came to stand along beside her, and held her close between them, gazing not at her, but out at the future they had created together. “Don’t ever forget how much I love you.”

She knew they wouldn’t, nor would she forget how much they each loved her as uniquely as she loved them individually. For all the years they had spent hidden and hiding, they were unquestionably patterns and choices and circumstances of the past. Hermione knew it. After all, the logo that was painted on the wall was updated, refreshed, from the simple triple W they’d used for ages. 

The new logo, though using the same yellow, orange, and purple color scheme was a circle, within a circle, within a circle. In between the two outermost circles, there were concentric rings of dots, three strands of them. To anyone who didn’t know better, it was merely a whimsical design blocking out the Weasley and Weasley proudly proclaimed in the middle of the circle. Hermione knew better what cords of three, rings of three, really meant. However, it was the addition of the star behind their names that changed everything. 

The circles of three, three times was a representation of a triadic bond, a representation largely rooted in historical lore. There were people in their community who would see the logo and know its representations, who would know what it meant. It was a declaration like none other, a public declaration of their bonds. No magical person invoked those ancient designs without laying claim to their deep and abiding meaning. 

Hermione knew that it was cleverly done. If pushed into a sticky situation, they could claim ignorance or just plain coincidence. The star in the center, though, was as much a private gesture as the triadic circles were a public message.

It wasn’t every girl whose bonded put her name in the stars on a balmy summer night over her parent’s back garden. Hermione knew that, every time she saw the logo, she would think of the parts of their bonds that were theirs and theirs alone. It was that private and personal emotion that was the bedrock of the bond. 

Hermione stared at the star on the wall, the star that grounded and centered the rings, until her eyes blurred. Though she heard the words they spoke in reply, she didn’t really need them. She felt them every time her heart beat and saw them everywhere she looked.

* * *

After a long time, Hermione looked to George. “Ward the doors, would you?” 

She’d been planning this all day, and really, there was no time like the present. She didn’t think she could possibly let another moment go by without them. 

He did as she asked, rising an eyebrow in question. She answered his question with a question, “Fred, the room.” She used her ability to turn the air into something approximating solid ground to give herself enough of a boost to settle herself on the counter, legs hanging down over the edge. She thought better of it, “Actually, ward the building, I think.”

“The building?” George repeated, watching her as she tied up her hair and stuck her wand through the messy bun on the top of her head. He liked to loosen her hair, so she figured on letting him tick a few of his own boxes if she was going to fulfill one of her long held daydreams. 

Hermione shrugged. She was admittedly being a little cautious, but caution was the name of the game with them. Instead of telling them what they already knew, Hermione worried her bottom lip in that way drove Fred up a wall, and admitted, “I’d make a joke about one final thing left undone in the shop, but that’s a bit crass, isn’t it?”

The expressions on their faces were priceless as they saddled up to her, as though they were unable to quite believe that she was doing this. Really? This they considered adventurous? Perhaps it was simply checking a few of their boxes, as it were. Hermione resolved not to peek into their thoughts. 

Hermione sighed. It was evident that she was going to have to do all the work herself. They were close, but they weren’t even touching her yet, beyond pressing close to make sure she didn’t fall off of the tall counter. For every drawback of being short and rather rotund,  there were benefits, like your beloveds being concerned that you would fall and crack your head when you attempted to seduce them on a freshly cleaned counter in the middle of their new shop. 

It was quite evident that this show of imitative wasn’t something they’d been expecting. Hermione gloried in this feat, pleased and further aroused by the proof that she had pleasantly shocked them. She leaned closer, and whispered, “I’m talking about me.”

Her shoes hit the floor with a resounding thud as she kicked them off and Fred wrapped her leg around his hip. She leaned against Fred to boost up as George’s fingers found her buttons and his mouth found hers. Evidently, she had made her point quite well indeed. 

Where George’s fingers meandered over the tiny buttons doing up her liberty print blouse, Fred was a man on a mission as he sought out the hem of her skirt. Hermione gasped, pulling her mouth away from George’s to protest Fred’s retreat. 

Fred smirked against her now naked shoulder, soothing her with the press of his lips. “It’s better when you wait.” 

Hermione sucked in air, and vanished creased cotton oxfords, and reached for Fred’s belt. She was quite handy at the motion of undoing them, she thought. George was quite content to throw her bra behind him in a manual fashion. Behind them, Hermione saw it land on the top of a carefully designed display. She dug her fingernails into George’s arms when he blew a puff of air against her exposed chest, and looked to his brother, “Nobody’s going to come in, you know.”

“Sign very clearly says closed.” Fred agreed, idly sliding his hand up and down her thighs. “I warded the doors, too.”

George grinned, as though this was new information, brushing his thumb near to the apex of her left breast, in an achingly teasing fashion. “Did you now?” 

“Hey!” Hermione demanded, “The only thing I really want to hear is you two working out the logistics.”

Hermione tried to pull her knees together to trap Fred’s hand there as he played with the elastic of her knickers, not that it worked. Her leg was still hooked gently around him. “What do you think this is, Kitten?”

He moved back, dragging his fingers away as the elastic fell gently into place again. Hermione whimpered when George dragged his tongue across her clavicle. He paused to catch her eye. “Don’t you think we spend ages and ages considering your needs?” 

“Do you think magically orgasmic orgasms just happen?” Fred kissed her far too lightly, far to superficially, far too gently, teasing her with his words as he did with his actions. 

Fred’s kisses typically lit her up like a christmas tree. Now, his gently teasing ministrations only served to highlight the need, the sparks unfurling in her belly, not quite igniting the fullness of her passion simply severed to make her all the more desperate. “You’re bloody well telepathic. Just—”

Fred pulled away and addressed his brother, “Well, I say we take our time, George.” 

George’s hand was skimming over her knee. “I like the sound of that plan.” 

Hermione squeaked. If given the right incentive, she knew she was so close. “Yes, well, I’ve been planning this all day, and—”

That got their attention. 

“Oh?” Fred quirked an eyebrow. 

George’s tone was desire and teasing personified. Hermione quaked. “Have you now?”

Fred murmured, hands soothing her arms as if he was just seeing the flush all over her body, was just noticing the tensity in her muscles. “Wouldn’t do to leave you wanting, not when you’ve been so very patient.”

“Would be most ungentlemanly.” George kissed her between the eyebrows, and Hermione curled one hand around his neck. 

Fred helped her to shift forward. “Tell you what, Kitten…”

George finished their plan, clearly for her input as all such plans were offered. “One now, more later.”

Hermione quite liked the sound of that plan, wishing they would just touch her already. Noting the gleams in the eyes, she decided to push them just a little, “How many?”

In tandem, hands slid up her thigh. Fred stared back, his eyes glittering. “Surprise us?”

Hermione lost her breath when George wordlessly and wandlessly Diffindo’d her knickers, and followed up his actions with a follow-up question. “Please?”

 In the end, much later, Hermione rather thought she did surprise them. And if she didn’t, well, they had a lot of fun trying.  

* * *

Of course, it was Ron who shattered her afterglow. Hermione slid off the their laps onto legs that were, even after a long time, still boneless. She padded up the stairs and into the loo as the twins handled what was left of the clean-up and admitted Ron who was banging at the warded door.  

Moments later, she praised herself for stocking the loo in the flat, and moved back down the stairs. She was freshly showered, because no cleansing spell would get dried anything off her thighs and stomach and chest, let alone bodily fluids. There were some things that spells just couldn’t handle to this muggleborn’s satisfaction. 

She paused when she heard Ron ask, likely for the fifth time, “Are you sure Hermione came here this morning?”

“Yeah, relatively sure.” Fred informed his brother, “Insisted upon it, quite vocally, though I don’t know where she went.”

Hermione heard the smug note in his voice. She promised retribution, but the only response she got was a sense of anticipation. Oh, Hermione thought, pressing her palm to her face, why were they such pranksters? Hermione heard a wistful sigh in her mind, and heard the reminder that their antics was precisely why she loved them. 

The helpful voices in her head informed with some appreciation that her that her blouse was misbuttoned. 

Hermione stood on the stairs and began to fix her buttons. 

As she did, Ron asked. “Well, where is she?”

“I couldn’t say.” George murmured, “I was rather busy that last time she was going on about it.”

Hermione colored, and chided him gently. They really shouldn’t tease poor Ron. One day, he’d figure out what they’d been talking about, and be totally disgusted. He’d get things by now if he wasn’t totally focused on quidditch and sold on the idea that his friend Hermione was one of the boys, same as all the others, even Ginny. 

“Well, the school letters came, and Mom’s going mental because someone set up anti-apparition wards around the whole shop.” Ron informed them, “She wants all of us home to open them.”

Hermione fixed the last button, smoothed down her skirt, and walked down the stairs, only to notice that her shoes were still thrown across the floor, having been  kicked away and forgotten. She tried to move around the room, in between the aisles, to get at her shoes before Ron saw them. 

Though Fred and George tried to distract him, Ron noticed her slipping through the aisles to find her shoes. She shrugged them on, as Ron asked, “What have,” He wrinkled his nose, “you been up to, Hermione?” He watched her hop to fix the back of her flat, “This is hardly the place to take off your shoes!” 

Of course, it was all Fred and George could do to stifle their reactions, and their laughter. Hermione shot them a glance. At least they hadn’t been figuratively or literally caught with their trousers off. If Ron looked faintly confused by bare feet, she could only imagine the emotional trauma he might have suffered had he banged on the door a bit sooner. 

* * *

As a group, they side-alonged to Molly’s comfortable kitchen. She was all aflutter. After excitable greetings, she bade them all to open their envelopes. Her envelope was bulky, and Hermione wasn’t overly pleased or surprised. Dumbledore was trying to buy her obedience. After this summer, it was a paltry gift. 

Hermione knew at once that hers held a prefect’s badge. With too much knowledge to be giddy or excited, she showed it gently to George, who nodded gently, the flare of his pride suffusing her soul, making her blush. 

For his own part, Fred smirked as he looked up from his own letter. “Who would have thought it, huh, George? A Prankster Prefect.”

Hermione smirked, “Unlike some, I don’t get caught.” She was only teasing, and they knew it. 

Before she could share her news with everyone else who had assembled, there came a shocked cry from Molly. “ _I don't believe it! I don't believe it! Oh, Ron, how wonderful! A prefect! That's everyone in the family!”_

Pain ripped through the bond, even as they had begun to tease Ron when they realized what was what. Before her boys could paste on a smile and pretend they weren’t hurt by the very obvious slight, Hermione snapped, “Being a prefect isn’t everything, you know.”

Molly looked to her, at once confused, because Hermione was gripping her own badge in her hand with white knuckles. “Why, Hermione!”

“S’Alright.” Fred muttered, even though his emotions clearly told her that it was not alright.

 _"What are Fred and I, next-door neighbors?"_ George asked, a pained smile on his face, “Cabbages who managed perfect OWLs. What a feat.” 

That was a right zinger, mostly because Ron’s grades, even with her help, were simply passable. Ron colored, seeing the truth in George’s words. Molly pulled her youngest son to her bosom, clucking over him. 

Fred muttered something under his breath. Hermione pressed her hand over his on the counter. He grinned at her, then, “I suppose having friends in high places can’t hurt us, George?”

“Indeed not.” George affirmed. “Think of all the passes we’ll get now.”

Hermione colored. “If you think for one second I’ll use my prefect’s badge to get you two out of trouble—”

“Take cover!” Ginny cried, zipping around the kitchen, “Hermione’s crackling!”

Hermione broke off, and realized that her hair was indeed full of static electricity and magic. Fred turned their hands over, exchanged a look with George, and pressed a comically theatrical kiss to her cheeks. 

Hermione scowled, but felt them pull the magic through their lips and made a mental note to play around with that possibility later. She shoved the thought from her mind, knowing that any further thoughts on the subject would kill her. She’d drop dead if she so much thought about it. 

Fred glanced at Ron, who was staring. _“You don’t mind if we don’t kiss you, too, Ronnie, do you?”_

 _“We’ll curtsy, if you like.”_ George nodded, taking the piss out of his little brother. 

Behind his mother’s back, who was going on about a new broom, Ron sent flicked his fingers upwards in a vee, the palm facing his own body. He thrust it defiantly. “Oh shut up!” 

“Oh what?” Fred asked, “Give us detention, will you?”

“Detentions will not be used—” Hermione declared to one and all, “To settle interpersonal disputes.” 

“But think of the fun we could have had.” George replied, nudging her gently. His thoughts told a bit more of the story. He apparently found women in power quite alluring. 

Mentally, Fred enthusiastically concurred. Hermione mentally replied that if they thought that that was a possibility, she’d let Ron mete out  the deductions. 

 _“I’d love to see him try,”_ George teased. “But we’ll let you.” 

_“We’re going to have to watch our step, George,” said Fred, pretending to tremble, “with these two on our case. . . .”_

_“Yeah, it looks like our law-breaking days are finally over,”_ said George, shaking his head.

Their mental conversation told quite another story. Hermione shivered. Damn them. She was simply keyed up. It was merely aftershocks.  

With a pop, they left the room, leaving her to flush angrily as she caught herself against the counter and shoved away her easily aroused thoughts. She screeched, _“Those two!”_ She looked up at the ceiling, and felt their laughter, glad for it even as she had to play the straight girl. She glanced at Ron, “Don’t pay attention to them, Ron.” She raised her voice so that she was sure to be heard, “They’re only depraved troublemakers!”

The laughter that floated down through the ceiling made Hermione feel better. At the very least, she had reminded them that this family needed them, and they weren’t next-door neighbors. She needed no thanks, but really, was making her knees weak so soon quite necessary? 

Mentally, she received half-hearted apologies. She screamed, “You’re just jealous of me!” 

Knowing full well what she was talking about, they conceded this was quite possible. The rest of the family was looking at her quite askance. Hermione tucked her hair behind her ears, “Well,” She said pertly, “who wouldn’t be?” 

Ron scoffed, “I don’t know, Hermione…”

Ginny was well beyond anything other than discussing her brother’s new broom. “Well, if you’re getting a new broom, can I have yours?” 

Ron shrugged. Hermione, quite satisfied with her handling of the situation, turned to her book list and went off to find Hedwig to tell her parents her news and ask if they might have an entirely vegetarian dinner when she next was home, something Indian, so that she could laugh when their eyes teared up and they shoved naan in their faces to cut the spice that their Devonian palates could not handle.  

They weren’t the only ones who could pull dirty tricks. And anyway, getting back at them gently made them smile. 

Exiting the room, she passed Molly Fred and George’s letters. They were tied for the top of their form. Naturally, they had said nothing of their own news. Hermione watched as Molly’s face fell. Gently, Hermione absolved her, “They don’t really want a fuss, but maybe you should say something?”

Molly hugged her. “Thank you, Hermione. I’m very proud of the woman you are.”

“I know.” Hermione returned her hug, feeling a sense of warmth spread through her as all of the bond welcomed Molly’s hug. She’d pass it along, until Molly could dole out her own Molly hugs. 

* * *

That night, there was a small party in their honor, which meant she could not go home for more than a few minutes to bid her parents farewell and pack the last minute things she needed, though Hermione was quite happy to let Ron be the guest of honor.

Hermione leaned on the wall, watching Fred and George make a rather dodgy sale under their mother’s eye. There was laughter and joy and cake and punch. Hermione was simply happy to see Ron bask in positive attention. She knew Harry was jealous, but he seemed to have had a chat with his parents and was on the upswing. 

Hermione’s good mood was shattered when Tonks, under the guise of chatting about defensive spells, leaned close and slipped a bit of muggle copy paper in her hand. It was folded up like a ship’s sail, tightly locked together. Sending information down the bond, Hermione slipped from the room. 

She knew the boys were finishing their sale. By the time they came to her side in the parlor, Hermione had read the short message. 

_“Kqp rmgrwnv pfrao. Galtcttn pmjdzxy. Kalmnwzwr kx eyn dkjezxy. -ISW_

Looking to her boys, Hermione grinned. “It’s a cipher.” 

She stuck the paper out to her boys. “Up for a challenge, boys?” 

Fred plucked the refolded paper from her fingers.

George grinned back at her. 

Hermione knew she hadn’t needed to ask. 

She went back to the party, her mind on what the boys were doing to crack the code. Within minutes, she got a mental image of the meaning. 

**The advance guard. Practice evasion. Traveling to the station. -RJL**

Hermione grinned at Tonks to let her know that the message and been received, and when she had chance, blinked out a message in muggle morse code, a code no wizard might use, but one that Hermione had picked up under Lupin’s tutelage. He didn’t acknowledge the notice of their understanding beyond sipping his mug. 

Later that night in their bedroom, George vented no small amount of frustration. “What, were they just going to spring us playing guard dogs on us no time to plan?” 

Fred looked thunderous, and the bond reverberated and burned with anger. Hermione tried to help them see reason, “Well, we have some time left. All we need to do is figure out the best route to King’s Cross, and make sure no one gets in our way.” 

Fred snapped, “It would have been nice to know this before—”

George made some sound, that cut Fred off. Fred flopped down on his bed. Hermione knew now that she was missing something, but something inside of her said now was not the time to ask. 

“Duty first.” George summarized. 

Hermione conjured a whiteboard, and they began to strategize. As they did so, the strange tensity bled from George and from Fred. They plotted for several hours, until Ginny came by with a plate of biscuits, and they vanished the board to the closet. 

Though she drew them downstairs to join in the end of summer fun at Grimmauld, Hermione was rather distracted. She was sure of one thing and one thing only. Dumbledore wasn’t going to read them in. He had no intention of doing his point to create the open lines of communication that they needed to fight this war. Hermione had no intention of letting Remus stick his neck out. 

Therefore, she knew that she had to do something. She had to prepare Harry. She had to do something.

Hermione, figuring that Arthur and Molly would get over it, sat up around midnight, and padded down the long and palatial corridor that separated Ginny’s room from Fred and George’s room at Grimmauld. She was careful to skirt the portraits clustered on the wall, knowing they were keen to snitch, and made it into the room without tripping over the half tables along the wall or waking the house. 

Hermione apologetically woke them with a gentle prod through the bond. There was nowhere for her to sleep. They were so aware of her in their minds that they hadn’t even woken up. Anyone else entering their rooms would have ended up at wandpoint, so well trained were they. Hermione knew there was no paranoia in this collective habit. 

When she was aware of dual pairs of eyes on her, she admitted. “I couldn’t sleep.” 

George scooted over, and lifted the quilts. Hermione scuttled to climb onto the high wooden bed, tripping over her nightgown as Fred enlarged the bed, hauled his pillows over to the widened bed, and flopped down. Fred untucked her nightdress from around her knees, and George pulled her gently into the middle of the bed. 

Settled down properly, Hermione gave voice to her thoughts, “How would you two feel about raising a clandestine army under Dumbledore’s crooked nose?”

Fred gave a sleepy laugh, “Wicked. I’m game.” 

George made a sound of agreement. “Tomorrow, though, love. Tomorrow’s good enough for covert insurrection.” 

“How are you not exhausted?” Fred rolled over, onto his side, and threw and arm around her. 

Hermione sighed. She had meant to tell them all about her plans, her reasonings, her motivations. George was right, though. It could wait. Tomorrow was coming soon enough, and she meant to have all the peace she could before it did. Besides, while she would never tell either of them, Fred was right to be incredulous. She was exhausted. 

She fell asleep with a smile on her face, cuddled between two warm and sleepy men she loved beyond measure. They’d quite worn her out today, between political subterfuge, school letters, and a stupidly ridiculous number of orgasms. 

George pressed a sleepy kiss against her throat, quite unaware of his actions. Hermione splayed her hand against his chest, and fell asleep. 

* * *

Of course they got caught, but by Ginny, thankfully. She’d noticed her roommate was gone when she’d gotten up to visit the loo, and woke Hermione quickly, with the hissed statement, “Mum’s in a right tizzy already!” 

Hermione groaned and crawled out of a warm bed, thankful for their ability to sleep through anything. Hermione, according to the plan they’d made last night before going to bed, dressed carefully in muggle clothing, tucking her abundant hair under a baseball cap. Really, after all the drills and practice, today should be child’s play. 

She went downstairs and tried to help Molly with breakfast. It didn’t go well because Molly argued with Kreacher over household management, as though Grimmauld was her home, too. Hermione tried to stay out of the fray and ate her egg and soldiers quickly. The whole thing was a jumble, but at last they were ready. Hermione was quite flustered because she’d nearly gotten into it with Ron. 

She twisted her charm bracelet around her wrist as she came upon Harry. 

She whispered, “I need you to trust me, okay?” 

The entryway was filling with people but Harry understood enough to nod, and look expectantly at George as he came into the room, “Fine day, isn’t it?”

“Glorious.” Hermione deadpanned. 

“It’s Hermione Day, Hermione.” George chided her, “Be sensible.”

Hermione colored as Harry snorted. Hermione briskly moved along outwardly carrying on with her conversation with Harry while inwardly following another thread of conversation with George. He was really quite sweet. The firewhisky bottle charm was a little bit funny, but Hermione appreciated the remembrance. She was also glad he liked the absurdly lumpy Wheezes themed scarf and mittens she’d spent all summer on. She’d quite given up the idea of getting him to wear a hat in the snow. 

She didn’t get to talk to Fred, because he took point in ushering their little traveling party. Hermione was keeping to the back, monitoring both the movement of the group and keeping an eye out to see if they were followed. George was close to Harry, which was critical in case trouble flared. 

Though none did, she had to listen to people whinge the entire time, which was troublesome enough. Even though her work took up most of her concentration, she distinctly heard someone say, “I don’t know how Muggles travel like this day after day, without the benefit of magic.”

“They don’t.” George assured his mother, “They take the tube or a bus. But the Tube is too dangerous. Too many people.” 

Buses were easily targeted by Death Eaters, and were a last resort for getting away, but only if they didn’t have people who had only ever ridden on the Knight Bus along with them. They skirted carefully around a mother with a jogging pushchair, knowing that a push chair was a fantastic place for bombs.

Hermione forced herself to relax when they didn’t explode. She so wished that it was safe enough to travel with Sirius and Remus, but they were traveling very openly with a decoy Tonks, as per the plan they’d enforced this morning. 

Ron groused, “You get to do everything. You go to parties, and ride the muggle Tube, and—”

George cut Ron’s grumbling off, “Bill went to Egypt, Charlie charmed the skirts off every girl he met—”

“George Weasley!” Molly cried out. Hermione winced inwardly. Rule number one was never to use their full names where others might hear. 

George continued along, “And some trousers off lads. Percy went barking mad. By comparison, Freddie and I are staid, boring, old men.” 

Hermione had to bite her hand not to respond. Crooks yowled from where Ginny was holding his basket, now that his yellowed eyes had caught sight and scent of his Mummy. Fred called back,  “We’ve even got our very own the bookish cat lady.”

“Thank you.” Hermione declared, watching the muggle man get into the car and slam the door. He went the opposite way, but he couldn’t be discounted as a tail. She made a mental note of the car’s make and model. “I’m delighted to lend you an air of respectability. Just thrilled.”

Ginny commiserated, as they walked along, “We’ve all got our crosses to bear.” 

“Asses are made to bear.” Hermione retorted, under her breath, glad to see King’s Cross in the distance, even if it did mean braving the crowds. At least then she could tune out everyone. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: UMBRIDGE.


	11. 1995-1996 School Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Autumn 1995

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Umbridge is such a horrible villain that she required two chapters. 
> 
> P.S. Margaret Thatcher. And yes, I know the milk was oftentimes gross, and yes, that some people liked her, okay, I get it, but Matt Granger's allowed a political voice and I couldn't see him as holding any other opinion. I mean, have you met his daughter? 
> 
> But for God's sake, I'm not introducing politics, or making any comparisons, in this chapter or in this story. We've enough to contend with with Umbridge.

They boarded the Express relatively easily, though Molly was keen on a few extra hugs. She almost understood it, after the difficulties of the summer. The pain of Percy’s silence weighed heavily on Molly and Arthur, and where Arthur withdrew, Molly needed reassurance. 

Once aboard, Hermione had to slip away to tend to her duties with Ron as house prefects. Through the bond, she overheard some strange snippets of conversation and fleeting emotions that drove her to hurry along. When she came back, she found the customary compartment empty of Lee and Susan. Additionally, the bond was buzzing with something that Hermione could only describe as butterflies in the stomach, or as having consumed too much chocolate. 

And yet, the bag of chocolate was untouched, and they’d purchased nothing from the Trolley. She knew well what that meant. They hadn’t even eaten the sandwiches. 

Hermione’s heart ached for her boys, “I know this is the last trip to up Scotland we’ll take on the Express, but—”

Hermione tilted her head, listening to the tune George was humming in her head. She really needed to figure out how to turn off their growing telepathy. “Are you humming a hymn?” 

“Surely not!” George reared back. They were trying to keep her out, then. It was a certainty. Hermione tried to put feelers out, but carefully received only surface level information. They were alive, safe, in love with her.

Fred grinned, sang out some of the words, and added,“Your father taught us that one, love.”

“Leave retired politicians to the infamy they’ve earned, would you?” Hermione returned, settling down on the bench with Crooksy, who abandoned Fred for his Mummy. She wished her father would not educate them about modern muggle politics when they were all barely were able to grapple with magical politics. 

George quirked an eyebrow, “I don’t quite understand why she stole milk, but…” 

Hermione huffed. Clearly, they weren’t going to let her in on the situation without actual words. “Look, muggle politics are touchy.” She gently reminded them, “You can’t go on about them in public.” 

After a long second, she explained. After she did, “You both feel anxious.” She looked sympathetically upon them, “Do you want to talk about it?” 

They exchanged a glance. “It’s not anxiety.” George assured her, as though the whole gambit of emotions rushing through the bond were centered on her and he didn’t want her to worry. 

“It’s more like…” Fred stopped speaking, and Hermione drew a breath hastily when the fullness of emotions they were feeling rushed across the bond and filled her heart and soul. They’d been holding back on her.

 There wasn’t a word for this, for the sum total of what they were feeling. The intensity of it, coupled with the looks in their eyes, stilled her rabbiting heart for a single second that stretched between them. 

“Before we got Remus’s message, we made plans for today.” George began, scooting closer so that their knees brushed.

Fred was just as close to her from where he was sitting next to George as he added, “We know we tease you about Hermione Day, but really…”

She had spent years teasing them about it. They’d met today, years ago, and so the boys called it Hermione Day. They’d always been too young for something like anniversaries, and Hermione couldn’t fix the date that they’d decided to explore the emotions that drew them together. Every year, there had been some remembrance on their parts.

George told her, “September the first changed everything for us.”

 Fred elaborated, as if she needed to hear the words. “You changed everything.”

Hermione’s heart began to pound. Crooks nudged her heart, and Hermione let him scamper away to attack a bit of parchment. He purred in contentment as he shredded it gleefully. 

George looked at her with an intensity that was vivid, even for him. “For us, there’s this total separation between 31 August 1991 and the next day…” 

Hermione knew they needed the words. She had never been one to think that it was important to say what she knew, but she knew now that this communication was critically important. She thought back over her lonely childhood, a childhood that had changed radically that day in King’s Cross, “You both know, you must, that I feel the same way.”

George assured her, running his fingers over the back of her hand. Electricity crackled along their touch. “We know.”

“We feel it.” Fred admitted, and reached out to take her other hand. In between their connected hands, magic flowed like a current. He smiled gently, “See it.”

Hermione laughed gently, her throat suddenly clogged. There was so very much she wanted to say. There really just weren’t the words. Her boys exchanged a speaking glance, one that she couldn’t exactly place or decipher. She knew they were serious, and she could only really feel how much they loved her. Any other emotion or awareness was subverted by the strength and surety of that feeling along the bond. 

“I know we’re all young.” George began, as though he was begging her to see past something as trivial as their ages, begging her to just fall into his eyes and trust the truth of what she saw within their depths. 

“But I’ve always told you, haven’t I,” Fred flipped their hands over, running his thumb over her life line, “that if there’s one person in this world we’re serious about, Hermione, it’s you—”

Hermione’s mouth dried. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She was reasonably certain that she would be able to stutter out a proper, “Yes, yes.” once her lungs could fill with air. 

And then the compartment door was sliding open, and George cursed under his breath roundly while Fred stared at one Harry James Potter, son of Remus John Lupin and Sirius Orion Black, with death in his eyes. 

Harry took a half step back. “Am I interrupting something?”

Inwardly, Hermione groaned. 

George removed his left hand from his trouser pocket and shoved to his feet. “No, of course not—”

“Wouldn’t want our last trip up on the Express to have any significance, would we?” Fred caustically shoved his hand through his hair. 

“Just another dull trip up along some of the most beautiful parts of the UK.” George looked out the window and then back at Harry. “In a magical train.” 

“We didn’t have any sort of timing planned out, did we?” Fred jammed his hands in his trouser pockets and rocked back on his heels as though he could not believe his life. She swore he said that mentally before shoving down shields. 

Harry brightened, “Oh, good. You looked a bit serious. I hesitated to open the door. But I’m glad I didn’t put my foot in it.” 

Hermione’s heart flipped over again as she looked at the way George had his hands shoved in his trouser pockets and the way that George did not. Hermione swallowed a happy sob. Rather than launch herself at her boys and demand they continue, she let the moment pass. 

Obviously the chat with her Mum and Dad had gone well. It also explained Molly’s teary hug at the station not two hours ago. Actually, actually, her conclusion explained quite a lot. 

She forced herself not to smile, not to grin like an absolute loon. Still, some part of her was elated. She tried not to let it seep into the bond, lest she ruin their element of surprise. That wouldn’t do. She forced herself to think of dreadful things, like the culling of a library collection and non-recyclable paper products. The effort worked to a point. 

She looked at Harry, and found that she couldn’t keep an amused disappointment from her voice. She sighed, “You know you’re horrible, right?” 

“Ron’s looking for you.” Harry elaborated, “Luna’s making eyes at him. I think she’s just being herself but Gin swears she’s got goo-goo eyes, and we can’t face a lovesick Luna alone.”

“I’ve got to check on the first years, but I’ll meet you in a bit.” She looked at her boys as Harry went the other way, letting an apology seep over the bond. In tandem, they sighed, and pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head. 

Hermione did not go and check on the first years. Rather, she went to the girl’s loo at the end of the car, magically expanded to be as large as any school bathroom and let the gleeful magic that had been pooling in her veins shook sparks around her in the warded stall, zinging and pinging around and upon her. 

It was all she could do not to hyperventilate. Still, after stamping her feet in anticipation, she shook herself mentally, and instructed herself, “Serious. You must be serious.” 

Oh, if there was a time to quote _Emma,_ now was the moment. She had it far better than Emma Woodhouse, in any case. Poor Emma had but one Mr. Knightly. She had a Mr. Knightly and a Mr. Tilney of her very own. Determined to leave her glee and her fluttering excitement behind, Hermione let herself dwell in the imminent realization of some of her most cherished hopes for a few long moments. 

Hermione released the wards and heard voices floating over the top of the door, “—and I’ve heard that this new varnish is quite—” Lavender looked up as Hermione exited the stall, “Oh, Hermione! How was your summer?”

Parvati smiled, “We’ve been looking for you.” Though her roommates were very different from her, they were friends, the sort of friends that meant they didn’t always have to get along to love one another. 

They knew her well. 

Exchanging a look, they demanded as one, “Tell us everything.”

Hermione looked at the dressing table they’d conjured on a moving train. Years ago, she might have found this frivolous, but now she saw it is as the feat of magic that it was. She had learned over the years that even though her friends valued different things, that they were a part of her sisterhood. 

She bit back the remnants of her smile. “Uhm. Well.” She looked at the clear nail varnish, and then at her friends, “Have you time to fix my nails, too?” 

“Oh, Hermione.” Parvati smiled, “Sit, sit.” 

Lavender conjured another stool. “Nothing fancy now, just a buff, just some clear polish.”

“I have been waiting for this moment for five years, I think I know what I’m doing.” Parvati snapped at her blonde roommate. She pulled out cotton puffs and an emory board and a huge amount of vials. 

Hermione laughed long and hard. At least one of them could lay claim to that statement. Hermione looked down at her potion-stained and DADA ragged nails. Lavender assured her, “Good nail care is vital. I’m not even going to question your sudden interest, but wherever it came from, bless it.” 

Hermione knew that next week, she’d let her nails fade back to their normally flea-bitten ragged state. She had a sneaking suspicion, however, that after dinner she would have a very good reason to want nice looking hands. Well, at least a nice looking left hand. The right she was only letting Parvati handle for symmetry’s sake. 

* * *

Somewhere during mains, the nearly invisible gloss on Hermione’s down to the quick nails began to grow heavy. Her whole evening, her whole year, was now utterly ruined. Within the bond, she was calculating and recalculating how this could have happened without her noticing. 

Harry and Ron were confused, but Hermione knew better than to even feign confusion. Dolores, “Dolores Jane, thank you, Professor Dumbledore,” Umbridge was the personification of power, even if she didn’t look like it, with her admittedly horrible sweater and alice band more suited to a girl in reception. She was the face of the Ministry come to crush uprisings at Hogwarts. 

Hermione was terrified. Terrified. Through the bond, Fred and George tried to insist that there was no way the Ministry could know of their bond, but Hermione was not certain. She was sure they had been found out. Hermione hated her on sight, and she wasn’t stupid enough to question that gut level knowing. 

They had to watch their backs. She hated Umbridge because she talked about pruning knowledge, because she emanated evil, and because she had utterly ruined the point of getting a manicure, meaning that her nails would go to waste, and her ring would molder in George’s pocket.

Worse yet, any plans they’d had to be more out and open this year had just gone up in smoke, with the blink of those toady little eyes as they had been the center of Umbridge’s focus. 

* * *

Fury raced through Hermione. It took everything she had to keep her magic under check. Just this morning she had incinerated their lovely little advert with the merest brush of her fingers, sure they got the message. They had to keep their heads down until they figured out the Ministry’s game. Umbridge’s big prize was sitting right in front of her face.

Now was not the time to call attention to their abilities, even if they were channeled into entrepreneurship.   

The common room swirled around Hermione as she looked up from Lupin Lesson work. Her body ached after the workouts and drills, but it seemed that this year, he was intent on making sure she understood how to learn what he was teaching them a bit more thoroughly. Hermione did not particularly wish to make notes on a likely illegally sourced SAS manual. Nevertheless, this distraction from it was not entirely welcome. 

Hermione could not believe that here she was, working on a plan to keep their souls enrobed in flesh, and they were skulking in a corner with first years and a prototype. Here she was, clinging to her sanity after an awful day of lessons, wherein the new interloper seemed quite keen to pop between fifth and seventh year classes. She had on teaching role, and yet she was here at the Minister’s express wish. 

Hermione shut down their mental connections for a long second to center herself. She marched over to them, uncaring who saw, and ripped the bag from Fred’s hands, along with his clipboard. She looked down at their upside-down writing, and blanched. If she’d needed proof, she now had it. This was a testing protocol. 

Rage burned through the bond. “I told you,” She raged, keeping her voice low, “I told you both that this morning that you were not to test anything on first year children.” 

George, ever the one to respond to her in volatile moments, began, “Hermione…” 

She raked a gaze over him, cutting him down to size with the merest flick of her eyelashes and recoil of her head. 

Hermione did not care that Lee was staring, his dark face awash with warmth as he slid down in the chair he was occupying. “And worse yet, I not only told you, I begged you.” 

Noting that the typical approach wasn’t working, Fred made the fatal mistake of discounting her feelings and the promises they had made. “Aw, come on, they’re fine.” 

George patted a little girl’s hand. Her face was freckly, and Hermione’s anger bloomed into pain. Her eyes were green, and she had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. “Feel alright?”

The girl replied that she felt just fine, and scampered off. 

Her boys exchanged a glance. “Excellent.”

“It is not excellent.” Hermione cried, rage and hurt and pain and a million dreams dying in front of her eyes, _“If you don’t stop doing it, I’m going to —”_

 _“Put us in detention?” said Fred in an I’d-like-to-see-you-try-it voice._ He was clearly, clearly, trying to play this off with a joke. 

George was in on it, too. _“Make us write lines?”_

 _Onlookers all over the room were laughing. Hermione drew herself up to her full height; her eyes were narrowed and her bushy hair seemed to crackle with electricity._ The bond throbbed, and she thought that, finally, finally, they were getting it. This was not a joke. 

_“No,” she said, her voice quivering with anger, “but I will write to your mother.”_

_“You wouldn’t,” said George, horrified, taking a step back from her._ She knew from the bond that it felt like a knife had just been driven into his back, but why hadn’t he thought about her feelings? Hermione looked at the children, and very quickly sent all of them a surge of healing and restoration. 

_“Oh, yes, I would,” said Hermione grimly. “I can’t stop you eating the stupid things yourselves, but you’re not giving them to first years.”_

She had developed the bloody formula for them. She had worked out the weights and measures, the cooking times. But there was nothing more she hated right now. She hated herself for ever, ever putting the recipe in their hands, when she now knew what it had shown her, what it had taught her. 

She would have done anything to be ignorant for just one more day. 

The whole room was laughing. 

She was certain that only Lee and the twins heard her voice break with pain. Hermione’s eyes filled with tears. “If I can’t trust you with these children, what makes you think, either of you, that I would ever, ever in a million years trust you with mine?” 

Fred took a step forward. Something like regret pushed through her own emotions that were clogging up the bond, but Hermione didn’t want it. She didn’t want to feel their regret. She was stupid, but of course her mind had recently turned to a real marriage, and the things that went with it. 

It was all Hermione could do not to scream, not to yell. They thought this was about the shop. This had nothing to do with the fact that they’d ignored her advice on testing protocols for years. This had nothing to do with the fact that they hadn’t included her. She had done everything she could to keep them protected and safe, and now, when she needed them to lay low, they were doing this.

 In the end, it didn’t matter. They were grown men. 

What she had told them was true. If she could not trust them to not do something she had begged them not to do, how could she ever consider, ever, giving them children knowing that they’d be fed prototypes and used as ingredient testers from the moment they were weaned, if not before? How could she ever become a mother, ever, knowing as she did now what they had done, knowing that any child in her care as prefect, even tangentially, had been fed an untested product? 

Knowing full well her words had found their mark, she hissed, “I’m heartily glad that things are plain between us, because believe you me, if you think I’m rabid about going to bat for house elves, you’ve not seen anything.” Hermione didn’t need magic to back up her final warning, “Come after these children again, and it’ll be the last thing either of you ever do.” 

She picked up her bag, and left the common room. The whole room was laughing, jeering, and cheering. 

 Hermione herself was awash in misery and rage. She ignored the bond, went to the Room of Requirement, and blasted things until she cried. She would not leave her boys. To leave them was unthinkable. But to give them children knowing that they legitimately saw nothing wrong with enlisting testers who were little more than small children was a sobering moment. 

She had thought for a long time about having maybe four, maybe five, children. A witch had an extremely long fertile period. They didn’t even hit advanced maternal age until they were about sixty, even if most women did have their children at relatively young ages to get the baby making done before devoting their years to other things. Their bodies bounced back very easily with the aid of their magics. Hermione knew there were certain benefits to being a triadic focus, and she knew that her body would adapt easily to the strains and drains of impending motherhood. She also knew that she’d get pregnant with the slightest slip-up.  

Earth magic was tied to her cycles, after all. 

She liked kids, liked growing up with a whole horde of people in the house, and wanted that for herself and for her boys, too. She had always known, as well as she had known that she was going to change the world, that one day, she would have a small gaggle of children clutching at her proverbial skirts. 

Hermione didn’t think she was being irrational.

She knew it would be about a decade before any young Granger-Weasleys came along, considering the war, and considering her desire to go to Uni and make something of herself. It wasn’t like she was planning on raising a huge brood of bushy-haired gingers right out of Hogwarts, but she knew now that that long-term dream would have to be set aside, or at least altered heavily.

She would do what was best for her family, even if it meant making sure they never existed. It was a hard dream to question, but clearly, clearly, they weren’t as mature a triad as she had foolishly hoped. 

* * *

 

Hermione stewed for about a week. Remus accompanied her on runs she hadn’t planned, and let her blow up a lot of things in the Room of Requirement. Ginny was, as ever, quite ready and willing to side with Hermione, even when she did not know all of the details. 

She worked on her dueling with dummies, and missed her boys, hating herself for missing them. She wasn’t ready to talk about it. 

She was distracted from the clawing in her gut and the wrongness in her soul by the detentions Harry got with Umbridge, for what she was not sure. Hermione had a sneaking suspicion that she was targeting him as the Boy who Lived. 

Harry told her it was because he had told her the truth about Voldemort, and that Umbridge felt he was being unfairly favored by his Dad. Hermione put a stop to that when she saw blood quill marks on his hand, and uncaring of his protestations, used her standing weekly meeting with McGonagall to address the situation. 

The twins didn’t show up, but they weren’t pulling pranks. Hermione berated herself for waiting for them, and for letting McGonagall pat her hand and ply her with cake while she waited in vain. It that wasn’t the height of pathetic, Hermione did not know what was. Her mother’s letters were genuine in their support, but really, Hermione did not want to hear that every triad had their rows, and that it was only how they coped with them that mattered. 

Hermione was quite adept at avoiding her boys, even in the public spaces they were forced to share. Angelina, in a fit of power-madness called Hermione out about the row in the middle of the common room. She concluded, “Can’t you just accept that they’re sorry and move on?” 

“I’m sorry.” Hermione snapped after whole common room fell into a shocked silence, “Does this involve you, at all? Because really, I don’t recall seeing you anywhere in the situation.” 

The bond flooded her with a wild range of discordant emotions that boiled down to pain. They were in pain. Hermione knew this well, because her pain was just as bright and sharp. It didn’t make her feel good to know that they hurt, but it did make her rather short-tempered. 

“Their playing sucks, they actually take notes in class, George got five questions wrong in potions, Fred earned them detention by _not_ playing gobstones.” Angelina put her hands on her hips, and rattled off these things as though they were arrows meant to pierce Hermione’s body as her next words pierced her soul, “You’d know if you bothered to pay attention.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve more important things than quidditch, gobstones, and other people’s relationships on my mind, Angelina.” Hermione returned, knowing that the grapevine would rustle with that slight, “Thank you for your concern, but it is neither needed nor appreciated, and if anyone has involved you, I do apologize.”

Angelina didn’t like being brushed off, “They’re my friends, same as they’re yours.”

“Perhaps you wish they were.” Hermione allowed, a sick anger blooming in her soul as she smiled, “But don’t play with fire, Angelina.” 

Hermione glanced at her boys, then, and her heart broke. Maybe the doubts Remus had sown ages ago were right. Maybe they would have left her in the dust years ago if not for the bond. She was so weird. She had never felt more alone than she did in this moment, after so long of knowing what it was to be understood, what it was to be understanding. That was absent from her in this moment, and Hermione missed it. 

She didn’t want to be alone anymore. 

Let the grapevine make what they would of that statement. But if there was one thing they all knew, row or no row, hurt or no hurt, was that they weren’t gossip fodder teenage dramatists. This was so much bigger than the pit of rage welling in her soul. Maybe most sixteen year old girls didn’t think the way she did, but Hermione was certain that she could never be normal like Angelina. 

Hermione couldn’t bear the idea that her boys might want her to be someone else, be like someone else, be something she could never be. She couldn’t cope with the idea that they were more aligned with Angelina, with anyone, than they were with her. Perhaps this was just her lot in life, to be misunderstood and not quite in sync with other people. 

Hermione whirled, and turned back out of the portrait. She made it into the doorway of the Room of Requirement, because she had nowhere else to go, when hasty footsteps rounded the corner, having cut through a passageway they both knew well, and shoved an arm in the door that was swiftly closing. 

Hermione turned around quickly, squaring her shoulders. She blinked back the tears that she had heretofore been allowing to fall. The great fireplace in front of her made her eyes glint and glisten. “Oh, go suck face with Angelina.” 

Hermione had blocked the bond out, but she read their faces well enough. 

Fred’s freckles stood out in stark relief, “We have never so much as wanted to look at anyone else.”

“Shred the very fabric of our souls, you mean?” George’s voice was rough. 

He was being dramatic, but to desecrate their bonds was unthinkable. To suggest it was about as hard as one might hit, and they all knew it. The cheery common room reverberated with the emotional implications. It was something a silly teenager might say in the middle of a tiff, and yet, for them, there was a meaning there that existed only because they weren’t like other people. 

“You hurt me!” She screamed, wrapping her arms around herself. “You hurt me! Why shouldn’t I hurt you both, why shouldn’t I make you bleed as I bleed?”

“I’m sorry.” They almost tripped over each other to say it. Hermione let the bond flare around them, let her blocks, painful and draining, fade. 

As the emotional onslaught flooded into them, Fred blanched, “Merlin, I’m—” He inhaled sharply. Hermione knew it hurt. They were feeling what she had felt for days, “I’m so sorry.”

Hermione swallowed a lump in her throat. 

“I’m sorry, too.” George confessed,“We didn’t exactly understand why it meant so much.”

“We don’t give a fuck if the Ministry knows.” Fred explained, with the confidence of someone who hadn’t spent the last weeks of term stressed out and terrified, “Let them come.” 

“I swear to Merlin, Hermione,” George continued, “I swear to you, we were thumbing our noses at her.”

“And yeah, it was a dick thing to do, even for that, but if we had understood your motivations better, I know we never would have—”

In her heart of hearts, she knew that they would sooner cast the killing curse on one another than hurt a child. She knew it. She didn’t want to have that discussion right now. Her body was as overwhelmed as her brain. She was dizzy with the rightness of just talking, just talking. The fact that they could talk without screaming was mere bonus. “I don’t know how I feel right now.”

“I think,” Fred ventured, a slow smile peeking through as he felt the forgiveness and the depth of understanding slip along the bond, “though I can’t be sure, that you might be a little less angry.”

“Maybe a little bit lonely?” George offered, “Nope, that’s Fred. Lee’s been giving us the side-eye because poor Freddy’s needed a hug or two lately.”

Hermione wiped her eyes. She’d needed a few hugs, too. Crooks was quite ill-tempered right now, as he asserted with hisses and scowls that he did not exist to cuddle Mummy when there were mice in the dungeons to be caught. 

Instead, she asked. “What’s Kenny said?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s wondering who Imperio'd us.” Fred replied, “Poor sod.” 

“I know we need to talk, seriously, about where we’re going and what we’re doing.” Hermione admitted, “But for right now, just hold me, please?” 

And luckily, the Room provided the perfect space for that, as though even it had known that they’d work through things with a little bit of communication and personal ownership of the issues at hand.

Hermione smiled when she realized that it was she who had set the intention for the Room’s layout, though she would never admit it.  

* * *

Hermione running through the castle, hastening outside to the pitch, her breakfast abandoned. She scrambled into the stands, desperately needing the air. She didn’t dare have this conversation indoors. She knew without a shadow of doubt that the whole castle was bugged.

And why not? Dolores Umbridge was now the Hogwarts High Inquisitor. She had the castle under her heel as she did the actual teachers. 

Hermione let what she had seen on the walls and in the paper, if that tripe could be called the written word, fill the bond. Within moments, practice had ended, and there were two beaters standing near to her as they shrugged off their gear. 

Hermione knew that the changes made by the announcement of Decree Twenty-three was a mere harbinger of changes yet to come. She refused to dignify these injustices by calling them educational. “We need,” She whispered, “A plan.” 

This was so much worse than the sniffing around and the observations and the reports to the Minister and the poking and prodding at anything and everything and everyone. Umbridge’s power had now been openly acknowledged, which was a step in entirely the wrong direction. Hermione could see the path unfolding in front of Hogwarts, and it was dark indeed.  

“Can we blow her up?” Fred joked, “Mail her a Box without antidotes?” 

Hermione shushed him, well aware that they could be overheard anywhere. She paced back and forth in the stands, thinking over her plan. She bit her lip. “We’ve got to go underground, and raise a resistance.” 

In teaching defense skills, they would build a mental framework that was far more important. 

Through the bond, she understood their agreement and hesitation. She looked to them, “As much as I hate to even say this, it’s time. Harry’s going to hate me for it, but…”

They nodded, agreeing with what she did not voice. The light needed a leader, a single unifying person who had the traction to be a light-bearer in an increasingly dark and scary world. They needed Harry Potter.

It was time. 

Hermione understood this to be the first step on a towards path the open warfare she knew was coming, and yet had hoped to put off for some time. Harry was struggling with the doubts and the pain inflicted upon him by his peers and friends, such as his roommate. He wasn’t ready. But they had no choice. 

Mentally, they conversed, sitting in the stands, working out details. There was no way that they could be totally forthright. Hermione decided that she would broach the subject with Harry, while the boys would have a gentle word with Ron and Ginny. Hermione had a sick feeling that this whole thing was going to get worse before it got any better. 

Harry was reluctant. He was angry. He didn’t like getting attention. He certainly didn’t like getting attention for things he hadn’t done. Privately, when confronted with all the things he had done, he seethed, “You and the twins, you’re the ones with the training. I’ve got sheer dumb luck and guts and the fact that you do all the hard work!” 

Hermione tried to understand where he was coming from, and did not give vent to her own anger. She was desperately trying to fight with everything she had, and he was worried about who got the credit in the end? She was trying desperately to give him a fighting chance, and he was whinging on about test scores? 

Hermione smiled coldly when he asserted to them that they didn’t know what it was like to face Voldemort, contradicting his earlier statements. Hermione shut that right down, flicking her fingers in the empty common room, letting little bits of atmospheric energy coalesce together in her upturned hands. “Oh, don’t I?” 

Hermione let the magic fall back into the bond when Harry swallowed, “Now you listen to me. I am trying to give you that same training, all of you, in the only way I can. It is very likely that in the course of the War that you will bury me. I cannot leave all of this to a hormonal schoolboy who gets angry when his friends laugh at him.” 

Ron slumped in his chair. Harry sighed. They knew better than to press her. 

Hermione knew that Harry had made his choice when he began to speak in more positive terms. She was not sorry that she had to bring up the very real possibility that he would lose more people he loved. It was the truth, and no matter what, there were roles in this war she could not play, battles he alone would have to fight. She knew what it was to be shut out, and she would never do that to Harry. 

 She thereby spent the next two weeks getting the word out to trusted people. It helped that she had friends in all the houses, and that the girls she had surrounded herself with understood the bonds of female friendship. It helped that she had friends across the years. It helped, too, that she was a prefect, and knew more about the student body than some of the professors. 

After all of her training, planning a meeting at the Hog’s Head was entirely child’s play. Fred and George provided the undercover security, and Hermione was a bit obvious in her efforts where it counted, in order to drum up support. She knew that Harry would be angry about her expected turn out, but he had to lose some battles to win the war. 

Thus, her first real hiccup was keeping Ron on Butterbeer and away from the dusty bottle of Firewhiskey. She reminded him carefully that he was a prefect, adding that he’d be in his cups within half a sip. 

Ron looked at her as if to ask how she might know anything at all about something he deemed beyond her. “I just want to know what it tastes like, okay?”

Before she could begin to draw the words back, Hermione snapped, “It tastes like heat and ice, soothing your mouth as it burns a trail of fire in your blood, Ron.” 

Actually, to Hermione, it tasted like Fred’s toothpaste and George’s skin, with hints of pineapple from a mixed drink, but she wasn’t about to tell him that, nor about why she was twisting the charm bracelet on her wrist. She was suddenly very tired of hiding a large part of her life and her experiences from her best friends. 

Ron grumbled, “Goes to parties, gets to drink firewhisky, not that you likely appreciated it or took more than a swig before spitting it out.” He glared at her, “Is there anything you and the twins haven’t done?”

“Oh, loads of things.” Hermione murmured, watching as the first wave of participants came through the door of the dingy, off the beaten track, pub. As they had planned, Fred and George hid out in Zonko’s, keeping a lookout and minding the wards. Eventually, they tagged along, bringing up the rear. 

They ordered twenty-five butterbeers and passed the hat as Harry spluttered at her like a scalded cat. Hermione merely smiled. She was building an army, not a bridge club.

Harry would just have to get over it. This was war. There was no time for fear or ego. Things were what they were, even if she could not share all of her truths. 

Phrasing her speech as a general diatribe against Umbridge’s interference with coursework and her observations, which had cut out the practical sessions that had defined the DADA timetable since third year. She considered her nervous affectation quite useful, and played right into the hands of the people who thought she was worried over marks. 

Harry gave a speech, and in that moment, Hermione felt a real spark of leadership around him. He was a strong person, and Hermione was proud to call him the brother of her heart. Hermione listened as he fearlessly elaborated on the return of Tom Riddle as Lord Voldemort, listened with analytical ears and sharp eyes as people responded with all the stories of his feats.

Harry had done it. He had created a movement. He had created himself the center of their resistance, took a leadership role that was always meant to be his. He had given power to the people that would be affected. Selfishly, Hermione thought for a fleeting second that Harry Potter was a million times the wizard Albus Dumbledore would ever be, if only because he understood leadership as an act of sharing and co-creation, not secrets and power grabs. 

Giddy with the satisfaction of a well executed plan, Hermione missed Zacharias opening his stupid face. Naturally, Fred and George handled him easily, offering to clean his ears with what looked like a metal pipe, but Hermione knew to be a tool that was dead useful for expanding and manipulating wards. 

Things went along until the parchment was to be passed about, and as it was, dissent and doubt rose. Hermione had charmed the parchment to keep the secrets safe, so she made it very clear that people should only sign if they were invested. 

Harry was a consummate leader, not that he realized it. With a few words from him, doubts were set aside. People signed anyway. That friend of Cho’s was no good, but Hermione wasn’t going to let it be said that she hadn’t warned people. 

* * *

 

When Ginny followed along with Michael as the meeting disbanded, Ron went absolutely red. He grumbled as they moved through the village. “And what’s she got a boyfriend for?” Ron blustered, “It’d be like you dating somebody.”

Hermione had just about enough. She could not do this anymore. Ron was her best friend, legally and technically her brother-in-law, and she was damn tired of him living in some fantasy land where women didn’t grow up and things didn’t change. 

If Harry had to grow up, so did Ron. Hermione wasn’t above helping him face reality. Scowling, she grabbed Ron’s arm and hauled him into the alley between a thatched shop and Zonko’s. They’d been on their way there to conduct some competition research, but that would have to wait.  

Fred and George followed along, anticipation building in the bond as they exchanged telling glances. 

“Oi!” Ron called, as Hermione easily handled him and shoved him up against the bricks, “What’s your problem?”

Fred looked to George, standing on one side of his little brother so that he couldn’t escape. “Sickle on Hermione.” 

“I’m not stupid enough to bet against her.” George replied, taking the other side, blocking in the square. That formation was elementary tactics, but Hermione hoped they knew she wasn’t actually going to rough poor Ron up, at least not in a physical sense. 

“Ronald.” Hermione bit out, “I am only going to say this once, because I am tired of you being the butt of horrible jokes.”

Ron took a quick look at the way he was trapped between three people and a brick wall. He noted the crackle of Hermione’s hair, “Oh, Merlin…”

Fred widened his stance, hamming it up to look more intimidating and wider. “Kitten, please, don’t spoil our fun.” 

“We beg you.” George looked at her, and blocked Ron in with a casual hand against the brick wall. 

Hermione breezed right along, “I have two bondmates, and if you think I’d let anybody but me date them, you’re off your rocker.”

“I mean, everyone knows that one day…” Ron began, “But…”

“One day came years ago, Ron.” Hermione patted his shoulder, “It’s time you knew. Don’t give Gin trouble. She deserves this.”

“But—” Ron looked between them, “How does that even work?”

Hermione sighed tiredly. 

“Oh, Ronnikins…” Fred tutted, stepping gently towards his brother, in such a way that he was at once blocking his escape and facing his brother. 

“You’re a bit immature for that conversation.” George finished, his position mirroring Fred’s alongside her, “But we’re happy to provide the basics.”

“You see,” Fred began, in a patronizing tone, “when a witch loves her wizards very much, sometimes…”

“Wait.” George wrinkled his nose, “Wrong conversation. How about this?”

Fred’s tone lost all of his humor. This was a warning, and nothing more. “What consenting people do behind closed shop doors is none of your bloody business.” 

George came to the point. “Keep your sticky beak out of it, and you just might live to kiss somebody.” 

“It’s time you knew.” Hermione finished the conversation.

She rather had hoped to be a bit more gentle with Ron over the whole thing, but she wasn’t going to question her boys. She knew better to step in-between brothers.“We’re family, Ron, and we need to stick together. If Ginny’s found some measure of happiness, be happy for her.” 

Ron spluttered. “Yeah.” His gaze swung to Fred, “Did you say _shop_ doors?”

Hermione patted down her windblown hair, “Of course not!” She glanced back at Ron, “That’s a horrible place to take off one’s shoes, isn't it?” 

He scowled, as they began to move out of the alley, “I wish I was an only child.” He muttered, “And I wish Fred and George weren’t so bloody weird.” 

Hermione inwardly glowed. Somebody thought she wasn’t the weird one of the bunch. It was quite nice, all told.

* * *

The next Decree was a black cloud over most of the school, but it simply made Hermione yet more certain that she was right to be doing what she was doing.

She had gotten her plan into action when it was technically legal, and she was protected from exposure by the twins application of her charms theory.

She didn’t much like the look on the faces of Harry and Ron when she told them that she had bewitched the parchment to keep their secrets, but it was time that they knew there was more to her than she’d let them see. 

She knew it was changing their friendships, but it couldn’t be helped. 

The night of the first DA meeting, named by Ginny, arrived quickly. Hermione was glad for Dumbledore’s Army. It might be named out of respect and devotion, but Hermione knew that it would save her a fair bit of trouble. When the Headmaster was informed, at least it would look like they’d honored him. 

Hermione arrived early, naturally, and turned the floor into a trampoline floor. She warmed up using the trampoline to get some movement and flew up, twisting, bending, jumping. She tucked her wand into her hair and blasted some of her favorite records as she moved across the floor. She worked through  some movements, her twists more controlled and her tucks less sloppy than they had been ages ago. 

She was no gymnast, but that wasn’t the point. After all, muggle gymnasts didn’t use earth magic to propel their magical intentions into action. Muggle gymnasts didn’t have to use their moves to dodge fire, or use the floor to get more and more used to moving through the air or being at a considerable height. Muggle gymnasts would always have the floor. It was a training tool for Hermione, and she knew that one day, she would be expected to execute these actions flawlessly with a wand in her hand and concrete under her feet. 

She worked through some more advanced skills until she felt her body relaxing and her mind centering on her body. She hated spinning through the air, but at least it didn’t make her dizzy or want to throw up as it had at the start.

 She was sipping water, casually hopping up and down on a floor that was more springy than usual for her break, when Fred and George slipped into the room. With a wave of her hand, Hermione silenced the music blasting in the room, cutting Sam Cooke off mid-stanza. 

Hermione jumped her way to the edge of the floor. George, kissing her gently in his turn, pulled away and asked, “Are you ready, love?”

Fred passed her a tumbler of cold water. Hermione sipped it, and found it to be flavored. “I mean, it’s going to be tough to keep a lid on what we do, but we can. All we have to do is direct Harry, and let him direct everyone else.” 

They didn’t look entirely convinced as they helped to reset the room into a dueling room. Hermione understood their hesitation. Harry had very little training. Still, he had the qualities of a leader, and that, Hermione knew, made all the difference. It was like a magic trick of the muggle sort, wherein a man in a cape distracted onlookers with the right hand so as to let the left hand set things into motion for the right hand. 

* * *

It wasn’t as easy as all that, Hermione found. Harry roped them, without any hope of escape, into providing a demonstration into dueling. He was insistent that Hermione, with all of her book-based learning, show them the correct applications. 

Hermione could have killed him. The twins looked at her like deer in headlights as they muttered to each other, “I’ll flip you for it.”

Hermione returned mentally, _“What? Don’t you think I can handle you both?”_

George’s grin said everything he needed to say. He stepped up to the line. The gathered students gasped as Fred took his place next to his brother. This was not standard dueling protocol, but the DA wasn’t about gentlemanly dueling in Hyde Park or on the dueling tables at White’s. No, the DA was about surviving. 

Harry called out, reminiscent of Madam Hooch. “Now, I want a good, clean, duel.”  He added, “Disarm your opponent, only.” 

He counted off in French, as was customary in Gentleman's dueling, and they began to fire. Hermione made sure that everything she did was via her wand and called out. No spell she used was one she hadn’t learned in front of half of the room.

She parried, she lunged. They twisted, turned, and spun.  

The entire display was calculated. And yet, it was not a game. 

 It was a lesson. They had a shared endgame. It was, in a word, acting out roles for the gathered students, who were watching their movements with widened eyes and gasps.

They were on holds barred. War wasn’t going to be a tip-toe through the tulips, and though they limited themselves to what they were technically supposed to know and meant to be able to do, they didn’t retreat from the objectives of the DA, even in the first demonstration. 

George provided suppressive fire for Fred as he moved into her space, and they grappled with one another, close range spell-fire nearly blinding them both. As the object of this duel was to disarm the opponent they were facing, Hermione fought hard to that end, well matched though they were. 

She was breathing hard when her body hit the mat, body landing with a thunk as sweat pooled between her breasts. She hauled Fred down on top of her, grabbing him expertly by the ankle and bringing up her knee to trip him and locking it over him before he could scramble away. He reached for her wand, which she raised over her head, just out of his reach as she locked her legs around him, holding him back as his hands reached her wrists. He could not reach up higher by virtue of how she had him restrained. 

Hermione gave Fred no quarter as he tried to reach up higher, George’s spellfire zinging above them, making her unable to try and stand or to flip them over for her advantage. Fred’s wand was just out of her reach, and hers was beyond him by virtue of her outstretched fingers and tight grasp. Still, how she held it did her no good, beyond keeping it away from him. 

“Do you yield?” Fred demanded, their bodies meeting one another’s strengths and weaknesses measure for measure. His not inconsiderable weight bore down into body as his fingers strained to reach her clasped hand, her wand point safe above their heads. 

George was planning to zip up and grab her wand in the next ten seconds. She could feel his spells zinging closer as he realized that she, in pinning Fred, had left herself vulnerable. 

She rocked, shoving up to inch her wand away. If she could just…

“Yield!” Fred called out, through clenched teeth. 

George took that as a signal to run. 

She had three seconds. George’s feet were moving him ever closer, flinging out gentle stinging hexes. Two. 

Hermione twisted, using every bit of her body weight to flip their positions. She didn’t take the time to place her hands on his chest to push up. Instead, she merely grinned. 

One. Scrambling to her feet, she ran toward the wall at full speed, George racing up upon her, having just missed his shot by a scant second. With one turn and back tuck on the concrete, she was out of the line of spell fire and he had turn hard to avoid smashing into the wall. 

Hermione turned on them, reflecting back the spells they sent her way, even as she jumped and leaped, albeit not to her full capacity, to avoid their spell fire. She could see that they were really working for this, working on a plan, and so she turned the tables on them, and met their gazes. They were still committed to teaching. 

She couldn’t overpower them like this, so her best bet was to tire them out. 

She began running complex patterns, never enabling them to get ahead of her. They had to get close enough to grab the wand. She zigged and zagged, throwing spell after spell with much enunciation. She looped around them. She moved and moved and moved, drowning out the onlookers by sheer force of training and focus.

Finally, George tripped, and Hermione took the chance she had been waiting for. She rounded quickly, and dropped her knee to George’s back, knocking Fred back with a small stinging hex. She slid her palm up George’s back, and unflinchingly grabbed him in a properly executed choke,  though she didn’t apply pressure, giving her just enough time to pluck his wand from his sweaty hand and stick it into her bun. 

That done, she loosened her hold and looked to Fred. “Drop your wand!” She demanded, “Cease fire, drop your wand!” 

Hermione felt George’s grin on her skin and his laughter through the bond. She continued on with the lesson, quite complimenting Fred’s look of shock and fear. It was very well done. He held his wand pointed steady at her heart. 

“Drop your wand.” Hermione demanded again, “Do you want to know what will happen if you don’t?” Fred faked a moment of indecision, and Hermione drove her weight down on George, making it look to those assembled as though she was threatening Fred and hurting George. Really, George was making dirty jokes about her being on top of him, and Fred was trying to predict Harry’s reaction. “Drop it!” 

Fred carefully dropped his wand. It clattered as people gasped behind him. He kept his gaze level, but Hermione knew he was laughing inwardly. She scowled, both for the benefit of their audience and for the expression of genuine emotion. Now was not the time for telepathic innuendos. 

Hermione grinned, slowly, knowing it was a bit evil of her to use his own words against him. She further instructed. “Kick it my way.” 

To ask a wizard to kick his wand was, well, an act of warfare, not polite dueling. It was a thing of the battlefield, and Hermione hoped that the older students in the room understood what she was trying to say. Friends could and would become foes on the battlefield, be it in a classroom or in a skirmish. 

Carefully, Fred kicked his wand. It rolled her way with a resounding clatter in the silence. Hermione could hear people breathing. She shifted gently on top of George. He obligingly flinched.

Seemingly to take pleasure from the fake gesture, and not the looks on people’s faces that she seeing through George’s eyes, she tilted her head, and leaned over George to grab Fred’s wand. “Tell me, Fred, do you yield?” 

He inclined his head. Hermione stuck the wand into her hair. To claim another person’s wand as their own was also a gesture of warfare, though really, she and her boys knew she just liked to use wands as chopsticks. 

Harry called out, “Arrêt!” in the perfect accent of picked up at the knee of Sirius, who believed all gentleman of distinction taught their sons French. His dueling style was so reminiscent of muggle fencing that it made Hermione feel bittersweet, only because Remus had killed that in her and fostered it in Harry. 

At that, she was on her feet, pulling George to standing as he grinned a secret smile. “Are you okay?”

George answered by pulling his own wand free with a smirk. 

Hermione passed back Fred’s wand. Instead of grabbing the wood, he caught her wrist gently, and ran his thumb over the eggshell skin there. She assured him, “You didn’t bruise me. Are you well?”

He nodded,  “Good duel.” letting his hand fall away from hers, and slapping his brother on the back. 

Hermione looked towards the DA, then. Across the line that demarcated the pistes, the assembled students were staring at her in shock. 

Then, and then, Angelina called out, “Granger, how’d you like to be a Chaser?”

Hermione smiled and sipped the water she’d summoned, “I hate flying.”

“Much more of a floater, that one.” George replied, rubbing the small of his back. 

Hermione breezed along, chugging some water. “Can anyone tell me what my tactic was or why I chose it?” 

A few answers came her way.

Hermione enjoyed the discussion and eventually informing them, “Actually, I did what I did because I knew I had no chance of winning against them. So I targeted their weaknesses.” She admitted, “I’m not as strong, but I can run farther and faster and I’m much more flexible.”

She tried desperately to avoid allowing to the fact that there were two very male perspectives in her head. 

She continued, “Also, you will notice that I played on their weaknesses. In threatening George, I got Fred exactly where I wanted him, without a single spell. I knew that they wouldn’t set down their wands for their own victory, but they’d do it to save each other.” Keen to get them back for their inner teasing, she summarized, “I exploited their tender feelings.”

“You had your knee on my back and your arms around my neck.” George protested. 

It was Hermione who got the laughs when she asserted, “Semantics.”

When the laughter settled, she continued, “And you will notice that when Fred had me pinned, I did the exact opposite of what DADA trains us to do.”

“We’re trained to keep distance.” Neville called out. 

“Exactly, Nev.” Hermione agreed, “But you can’t be afraid to touch your opponent. Maybe you won’t ever have the need to use hand to hand combat techniques, but a simple wrist lock might save your life. When your instincts say to pull, push.” 

Cho called out, “How do you know how to do that?”

“Books.” Hermione deadpanned, “How else?” 

“Defense is not always about wandwork.” Harry jumped in, “Often, it comes from the heart and is based on luck. But we know we need more than luck. Who wants to learn to do that?” 

Harry grinned. “Alright, so we start with the disarming spell.” 

When people began to complain, Fred called out, “You’ve got to crawl before you can run. A single spell can mean everything.” 

As they broke apart into pairs, Katie saddled up to George. “When’d you get so good at DADA?” 

“When I realized I had something important to defend.” He turned away from Katie, and made his way to Harry. 

Hermione realized that maybe, just maybe, the bond had changed the twins as much as it had shaped her path into maturity.

In the middle of the throng of students now calling out with some intent, Fred shook his head, mentally projecting a correction that was gentle but reproving. _“He’s talking about you, Hermione.”_

She remembered his earlier words, _“You changed everything.”_ and hoped they knew just how much they themselves had changed in her life. At the very least, they had helped her to see her own power, not as a witch, but as a person. 

Over the duo he was helping, George looked at her and projected, _“Embrace the weird, Kitten.”_

 _“Hey, brains before oddballs, please.”_ Fred returned, laughter rich in his mental voice. 

Hermione laughed outwardly, unable to help herself. Harry saddled past her just as she ceased, on his way to see Miss Cho Chang. On his way, he stopped, and smiled fondly, “’Mione, you are so strange.” 

* * *

This was not good.

This was not good. It was one thing to go after them. But to go after their little brothers, their mother, and their father would do nothing but sign Malfoy’s death warrant. Hermione ran as fast as her legs could carry her in her brown barn jacket, Weasley jumper, and denims. Her wellies slipped, but she pushed through the crowd easily enough. 

Hermione arrived, just as Malfoy continued, “Maybe, just maybe, you have a certain affinity for mudbloods.” He looked at Fred and George, well aware that he was going for the kill, “We couldn’t come up with a good rhyme for slag, but you can bet the mudblood whore is just as much a fat, ugly, useless loser as the blood traitor weasel parents.” 

Hermione did not care. 

And then, as it had before, all hell broke loose. Only this time, Harry was leading the charge. Fred shoved Harry aside, and he hit the ground with a thud, clutching the snitch as he stood. Hermione restrained her messy-haired best friend, using every bit of force she could muster. 

There was a crack of cartilage and a spray of blood as George pulled his hand away, and drove his knee in Malfoy’s groin, to the shock of the crowd. 

In tandem, Fred shattered his kneecaps with a smooth movement. It really was expert teamwork, and they would have continued beating the stuffing out of the idiot Malfoy if Hooch hadn’t been there, pulled away from berating Vincent by Malfoy’s screams of terror over the throng. 

She shoved Harry back, and the twins let go of Malfoy, aiming a final blow each upon him. He was a bloody mess, moaning and rolling around on the ground, protecting not his stomach, but rather his lower anatomy. Hermione tried to well up some sympathy, but really, she had none. Malfoy was a sore loser who’d insulted Ron, the entire family, and the Weasley parents, who had done far better with their children than the Malfoy’s could claim. 

Hermione shoved Harry towards Ron, and fell into step behind the twins as Hooch desperately screamed for them to go to McGonagall’s office. Hermione knew that they had attracted she of the _hem-hems_ , and there were only moments to spare. 

They ran. At the office, her boys stood at the front of the desk as Hermione kept an eye on the closed door. McGonagall, furious, demanded, “Do I even have to ask why you thought muggle dueling…”

“It wasn’t dueling.” Fred insisted, not adding that it had been nothing short of a beat down. “And he insulted our entire family.”

George was the one who put the whole thing into perspective. “Would you rather we had called him out for what he said about Hermione?”

“Merlin save us from the patriarchy.” McGonagall snapped. “I will do all I can to shield you from legal issues.” 

She didn’t exactly like the legal protections offered by the code of law, which stated that a man had a right and a duty to call out a man who insulted his wife. Though Malfoy was young, he was old enough to be declared competent, and no matter what else she might think, she knew that it would be a bloodbath, leaving the Malfoy line no longer extant. 

They all heard the footsteps coming down the hall. McGonagall gripped her wand. Hermione swore she could hear Umbridge practicing her _hem-hem._ “You will take your lumps from Umbridge. I hope you both enjoyed your last game as my beaters.” 

“She wouldn’t.” Hermione cried. 

And yet, she did. She banned Fred, George, and Harry from their beloved sport.

Further, she made Angelina grovel to have the team re-formed. Again. 

* * *

That night, Hermione was shocked by the state of Ron’s feet, arms, and hands and legs. She could feel the damage radiating off him as did the absence of heat.

Hermione bolted up the stairs to the boys’ dorm, and opened the door, just in time to see poor Kenny dive under the covers in an attempt to hide his boxer clad body from her maidenly eyes. “You shouldn’t be in here—”

Hermione huffed, shutting the door behind her, “Kenny, do be serious. I know the whole school is buzzing with tales of my supposed slaggery, but I’ve never kissed anybody I wasn’t married to at the time." She raised a finger, "However, even I had shagged half the school in the Great Hall, or on Snape's desk, I don't think it's a point of judgement or comment."

Hermione couldn’t even  appreciate the sound of Lee’s jaw unhinging.

She looked to Fred and George who were already shrugging on clothes. They knew why she was here, they’d seen Ron’s injuries through her eyes. She physically come to fetch them simply because Ron and Harry needed a minute to finishing shouting at one another. 

They hastened down the stairs and Hermione took another look at the damage. Hermione was surprised Ron still had all of his digits. She figured the best thing to do was sit next to Ron, and let her boys hold onto her shoulders. 

She pulled on the bond, and closed her eyes. Her skin burned with chill as she pulled the damage away from Ron. An injury this bad had to rebound somewhere, and it was rebounding into her. She needed their support to heal herself. The pain was agonizing. 

Her lips were blue as she lifted her hands from Ron. “Don’t.” She chattered to Ron, “You ever pull.” Fred tugged her into his arms and pulled her down onto the loveseat in their laps, “A stupid stunt like that again.” 

George wrapped the three of them in a thick blanket, and took her chilled hands in his own. Hermione felt her boys begin to pull the damaged energy away from her. She wrenched her hands away when she found she was no longer shaking. “I can—” She insisted, “…heal the rest…”

But she was already on the verge of a drop. Hermione’s teeth chattered, and she reached out with a trembling hand to Fred’s shoulder. Their warmth enveloped her. “Hey…” She was just about to ask somebody to close the window when she noticed light spilling from a cabin in the distance. 

Every head turned her way as she pointed, “Hagrid’s back.” 

Fred protested strongly, and George crossed his arms over his chest, clearly equally as disapproving. But Hermione was determined. She summoned her bottoms. George grabbed them out of the air as they floated down the stairs with her coat. 

Finally, he made his opinion plain. “You are not,” He held the coat to himself, “Going out in the snow, in the middle of the night, after healing that idiot’s frostbite.”

“I’m sorry.” Hermione pushed to standing, having put on her socks and shoes, which she was now wearing with her nightgown and jumper. “Are you actually dictating to me?”

“You were ten seconds from a drop five minutes ago.” Fred returned, “Forgive me if plucking you out of the snow and carting you through the castle when we’ve a perfectly good bed just waiting lacks appeal.”

They began to think such lovely thoughts about that very bed, and the glowing headspace that beckoned. Hermione felt her muscles begin to relax. She took in a deep breath, knowing they thought their stupid little trick to be working. She exhaled, and smiled gently. 

Hermione’s mind was sharp and clear, and she seized her clothing from George under the guise of capitulating. She noted the shocked look on their faces as she stumbled into her trousers, hiking up her nightgown to stuff it into the waist of her Levi’s like a blouse. 

“Do not.” Hermione snapped, her placid face falling away as she slid the button in place, “Think you can mentally fuck me over.” 

Harry recoiled. Ron goggled. Hermione did not curse, they knew that, despite present evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. She shrugged on her coat, and wound a scarf around herself, a wheezes one she’d made, before quelling the opposition with a single raised eyebrow. 

They really did not want to go there again. After their row, they’d agreed not to manipulate the bond to block each other or to inflict emotional trauma during a rough patch. She rather thought this counted. They’d agreed to put effort into actual communication. Manipulation was not communication. 

She knew something was wrong with Hagrid. She knew, somehow. It was suddenly clear to her, though how or why she knew what she knew was quite unclear. She knew it was something to do with a lingering magical signature, one that felt of Death Eaters. She knew that signature well enough to feel it miles off. 

And so, they set off to Hagrid’s hut, one Hermione with her nose in the air, one George certain she was going to fall asleep in the great mugs of tea Hagrid would offer them, and one Fred quite certain that both he and George were going to wake up eunuchs, castrated without anesthesia in their beds. 

As they neared the Hut, Hermione primly informed him, “I wouldn’t do that to poor Kenny.”

Hermione was vindicated when they were admitted. She healed Hagrid without delay. He was shocked, but Hermione played stupid, knowing that he would not ask questions after trusting them with the information he’d shared about the giants. 

Hermione admittedly was totally knackered, so they sat down to a tea Hagrid claimed to be very restorative. Hermione planned to transfigure it into chocolate and vegan marshmallows. The boys were on their own. 

Hermione barely got one sip of her chocolate, before they were scrambling into a cubby to hide from Umbridge. Thankfully, Hagrid was able to evade about the giants because his face was clear and free of bruising. 

Hermione thought they were in the clear when Umbridge began anew. 

_“There are three sets of footprints in the snow leading from the castle doors to your cabin,” said Umbridge sleekly._

_Hermione gasped;_ George _clapped a hand over her mouth. Luckily, Fang was sniffing loudly around the hem of Professor Umbridge’s robes, and she did not appear to have heard._

_“Well, I on’y jus’ got back,” said Hagrid, waving an enormous hand at the haversack. “Maybe someone came ter call earlier an’ I missed em.”_

_“There are no footsteps leading away from your cabin door.”_

Umbridge searched the small cabin, but did not find them. She turned to Hagrid, and demanded his whereabouts. He evaded, saying that he had been away for his health.

She flicked a glance over him, declared him in the peak of health, and pressed some more. 

Hermione stood stock still when Umbridge sleekly continued, “You look so well, in fact, Hagrid, that I shouldn’t wonder if you’ve had access to a bit of triadic magic, as it were.”

Hermione could hear their hearts stop, could feel the rising desperation like a wave of shared nausea. She knew about the bond, she knew about them. Somehow, she knew. 

She knew. She knew. Umbridge knew. 

Hagrid stammered, “Y’know there has bee’ one of those since the Scamanders died, bless ’em.”

Hermione dared not breathe. He had protected not only them, but the Prewitts, as well. It would take a bit of thinking to realize that Fred and George were just as much Scamanders as they were Prewitts, for the Prewitt member of that quad had been female, and hadn’t kept her own name.  

With a bit more witty repartee, Umbridge departed, declaring she would be seeing him soon. Her parting words, rang in Hermione’s ears, “It is indeed a delight to see you looking so well.” 

When she was going back to the castle, Hermione stumbled out of the crevice, and gripped her boys, gasping, “How?” 

Their faces, having been previously been shrouded in darkness, revealed the terror and shock that was racing down the bond. Fred spoke George’s thought aloud, “If she knows, then—”

He broke off, unable to even finish. George’s thought echoed in their brains. _“If Umbridge knows, then the only question is when she told the Minister?”_


	12. 1995-1996 School Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas to End of Term

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All quotes of text come from OotP. 
> 
> I did not write God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs. [This is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhwstiqDRXs)the version I quoted.

They meant to go home for Christmas, and to discuss opening the shop on the weekends the twins could go down to London from school. Who would truly want to spend more time at school with how awful Umbridge had made the place? Who would want to spend what was supposed to be a happy time with a toady, beady, little human hanging over their shoulders? Who would want to spend their holiday in a place where they could barely breathe? 

However, even days after that horrible night in the cabin, Hermione knew that any such ventures would have to be cancelled. As soon as she stopped seething, she wrote and made their excuses, vaguely but with sincere regret, and begged Sirius to check on the shop and the flat. All the while, she worried, hoping against hope that her parents wouldn’t be angry and that they might cancel their plane tickets. 

A reply came mere just before end of term, when classes were all but formalities. Umbridge strutted around the castle like a cock on the walk to the point that Hermione and the twins had set up warning wards to alert them if she tripped one of them so they could avoid her. It was the only possible way to stay sane and protect the DA. Hermione knew her owls were being watched. She was glad her mother had not gone into detail.  

Her parents were concerned for her, knowing that term had been challenging on multiple levels. They understood, however, that skiing over the holiday was far less important that keeping things on an even keel at Hogwarts, even if they did not know what those things were. She cited studies, but her mother hadn’t bought that story. No, she’d settled on another possibility. 

George commented on the letter he’d plucked from her brain as she read it silently, “She thinks we’re having trouble and—”

“She’s all but said she’s giving us the space to work it out.” Fred agreed, offering up his opinion as he tore open a bag of popping corn with his teeth. He spat out the plastic bit from his mouth. 

“Doesn’t want dear, darling, daughter Death Wish to be a divorcee.” George finished, leaning against the front of the chair from where he sat on the floor. 

“Dreadful.” Fred agreed, shoving popcorn into into the pan to hold it over the fire. 

“I’ve never not told her anything before.” Hermione felt their disbelief and amended her statement, “Well, I’ve never omitted anything, merely altered things. There’s a difference, you know.” 

The difference weighed heavily upon them. But to tell her mother, or any of their parents, that Umbridge knew what she knew without knowing how or why she knew was unthinkable. They needed logic and proof as much as they needed her admissions of the knowledge she possessed. After all, she could be guessing.  

Try as they might, they could not figure out how Umbridge knew, but know she did. It was clear as day in retrospect. Umbridge had been observing classes, theirs with increasing frequency. She had shown her hand to Hagrid. Even the dentitions with Harry made sense now. She thought Harry was an anchor. 

“Disgusting.” Fred murmured, aloud, shaking the popcorn pan. 

“Don’t.” George begged, shaking his head to remove the thought. 

Hermione sighed, “If you don’t want to hear my reasonings, stay out of my head.”  

Mentally, they agreed that Harry and Ron were the obvious guesses if one was certain that she had something to do with it, or if one was certain that Harry was in a triad. It was only that way because most people did not understand the differences between a trio and a triad, or at least a major difference. A trio came together for a specific purpose to use magic. A triad’s very existence was its purpose. They came together to renew magic, to animate dormant magic into the world, and to bend it to their will, to purify magic. 

Hermione gave voice to her thoughts, “After all, if I were guessing who you two were in a triad with, I wouldn’t put any money on the bookworm with leadership skills and a prefect’s badge.” 

“Who, then?” Fred asked, expressing his curiosity in a way that satisfied George. 

“I’d look for your trio.” Hermione revealed, wondering if they had ever realized they were members of a trio just as they were anchors in triad. When confusion bloomed through the bond, Hermione smiled, “Lee Jordan’s your third; hadn’t you realized?”

They were a trio for the purposes of pranking, for the purposes of innovation, for amplifying light and truth in a time of darkness. Trios were very uncommon, but it was common enough for everyone in a triad to be part of a trio, or so Hermione had surmised from reading. Hermione was surprised to learn that they had never considered it. Typically, it would be three groups of three coming together to lift up a single group of three, but they had never been typical. 

The bond filled with contentment, and then laughter. Hermione huffed. She was not suggesting anything. She was pointing out reality. Lee balanced the twins out in a lot of ways. He was hugely important to them. They loved each other. Yes, she insisted, they did love one another, in the same way they loved Ginny and Ron and Charlie and Bill and Percy. Yes, even Percy the Prat. 

Later, Hermione wandered off to her bed, replete with popcorn and her mind full of plans and ideas and theories. Not one made sense. She fell asleep dreaming of rings of three flashing across her brain and of the Christmas presents she’d been storing up all term, and of Christmas pudding at the Burrow and opening presents with her parents. 

Hermione woke up as terror ripped through her, terror and pain and shock and revulsion. The door to the dorm room swung open as Hermione sat up, her heart pounding. She had her wand pointed as his heart as Fred gasped, “Harry!” 

Hermione stood, and went bolting down the stairs not even stopping to inform her roommates, or to tell them why Fred hadn’t tripped the alarm. It was an answer that she was not willing to give them, given that it would only be more evidence for Umbridge. She knew that her roommates wouldn’t tell anyone, even as they would shamelessly press her for answers. 

There just wasn’t time. She dashed out of the room, her bare feet flying over cold stone as she hastened to the boys’ dorm, her nightgown billowing around her, brushing her hair back from her face. She bustled into the room, and saw that Harry looked quite unwell, and was likely near to passing out. From what he was saying, though, the idea of going back to sleep in any fashion was terrifying. 

When she came to Harry’s side, he sat up and vomited down the side of his bed. Hermione vanished it, and the boys tried to help him shift. The whole bed was coated in sweat, and Harry looked as white as death. She hated seeing him this way.

Neville went galloping away to fetch McGonagall. Hermione tried to take Harry’s negative energies and pain, but he waved her off, gasping out to the pair of mirror twins surrounding him, _“Your dad,” he panted, his chest heaving_ , reaching out for Fred _. “Your dad’s…been attacked…”_

_“What?” said Ron uncomprehendingly._

_“Your dad!”_ Harry tried to get George’s attention. Had he not been hysterical, he would have seen and known that no one in this room doubted him. _“He’s been bitten, it’s serious, there was blood everywhere…”_

Hermione made a soothing noise, as Ron tried to keep him in his bed. 

_“I’m not lying, and I’m not mad!” Harry told her, his voice rising to a shout. “I tell you, I saw it happen!”_

_“I believe you, Potter,” said Professor McGonagall curtly_ , coming to the foot of the bed _._ Hermione hadn’t seen her enter, but her glasses were askew and her green tartan dressing-gown was cinched tightly around her waist, revealing only the edges of a flannel night rail. _“Put on your dressing-gown — we’re going to see the headmaster.”_

Hermione wasn’t keen on that idea, but she got the idea that nothing she said would be heeded. She helped Harry to slide on his slippers, ridiculous things that were little help against the chill. Hermione resolved to knit him some proper socks. 

They hastened to the Headmaster’s office, Harry stopping along the way a few more times to vomit until his gastric juices were the only thing he had left to expel. Ron wrapped an arm around him and increased the speed at which they were moving. He refused healing and potions. 

Hermione knew that Fred and George were keeping lookout on the journey to the office. Umbridge was everywhere, even in the dark of night. George made a sound of warning, and Fred scooped up Harry and began moving quickly through the halls, outpacing the slithering of a toad. McGonagall turned her head to look back towards George. 

Hermione grabbed her wrist and propelled her along, wand out and feet never slowing. She clearly thought better of questioning or protesting. They raced to the stairs that Fred and Ron had sped upwards upon, with Hermione pushing McGonagall quickly ahead of her. 

The stone wall slid closed just as soon as George had launched himself past the entry with a hasty lurch. They padded up the stairs, and found that Harry was invigorated enough to state his case to the Headmaster, who seemed more interested in finding out about Riddle’s manipulation of Harry than he did Arthur’s well being. 

Sending a portrait was swift and clever, but why not notify Molly and have her say that the clock had revealed the situation? Many houses had such clocks. Again, Dumbledore discounted someone’s abilities because they didn’t manifest the way he thought they ought to manifest.

As he twinkled, the Headmaster informed them that Arthur had been _“been injured in the course of his work for the Order of the Phoenix,”_ and was, as they spoke, “being taken to Mungo’s.” 

Hermione was awash with terror. She tramped it down. Her family needed her to be strong right now, strong for Ginny, who was white-faced and trembling, strong for Ron who looked ready to vomit, strong for Harry, whose face was a picture of guilt and shame. 

Hermione infused the room was as much calming energy as she possibly could in the few scant moments she had before Remus came in, demanding to know why he wasn’t the first person alerted. The Headmaster twinkled, “This is Order business, Remus, I assure you Harry is in no danger.”

“It’s Mr. Weasley!” Harry blurted, “We have to go. We have to go. I have to—”

He lurched to his feet, and Ron grabbed him. 

“Harry…” Hermione tried to soothe him, “It wasn’t your fault. Your vision saved his life.”

“But I—” He glanced at the Weasleys in the room, as though they should blame him, castigate him. It was Harry who had assured Arthur lived. He could not see that in his fear and his anger. 

“You didn’t, Harry.” George assured him. 

“Or have you got fangs hidden somewhere in that gob of yours?” Fred asked. 

“We have to go.” Hermione broke in, one of her wards in the Tower tripping. Umbridge was in the Tower. She was moving towards the dorms. “We need to go now.” 

She shared a significant look with her boys. They felt what she was now feeling. The wards were screaming in her mind, rushing down the bond. 

“Right then.” Fred agreed, turning to her, “They’re watching the Floo.”

“Side-along?” George posited, looking at their faces. They could breeze past the wards, but that wouldn’t be easy for anyone else, even with their help. 

“No.” Hermione looked at Ginny, and wrapped an arm around her gently. She was just a little girl, scared for her father. Oh, Merlin, what she wouldn’t do to spare them all this,  “Things are too emotional right now.”

Hermione saw Fred moving, pulling a puking pastille from his pocket. With three deft movements, Fred shoved a hastily made portkey into her hands. 

Hermione was already instructing, “Everybody grab—” when Dumbledore thundered, “Who taught you to make portkeys?”

They were gone before Hermione could reply. The landed in a heap, Ron’s wobbly landing dragging her down to the floor of the immaculate entry of Grimmauld Place, Number Twelve. The floors were cold, but they grounded Hermione. By the time they’d all stood and put themselves to rights, Hermione had summoned a dressing gown from her room, and wrapped it about herself, Sirius was barreling down upon them. 

Remus landed with a sherbet lemon on his hand next to them, and allowed, “Dumbledore’s furious at you three, but Umbridge was coming up the stairs just as I left.”

Hermione heard what he did not say as he tended to his husband and son. He told them they’d done the right thing, even if he could not say so outright. Hermione took some semblance of solace in that statement. 

“Oh, Merlin.” George breathed, agony and fear rushing through the bond. “What if…”

“There are no what ifs.” Fred insisted, from where he was fussing over Ron. “We need a plan.”

They moved into the sitting room as one. Hermione paced in front of the fire. She kept running through what she knew, trying to be academic in an effort to help her naturally terrified boys. 

“We need to go to Mungo’s.” Ginny insisted, “I’ll go upstairs, get our cloaks and things.” 

 _“Hang on, you can’t go tearing off to St. Mungo’s!” said Sirius._ Sirius looked up from where he sat on the sofa. He looked frightened. Hermione could feel the emotion spilling forth from him in waves. 

 _“ ’Course we can go to St. Mungo’s if we want,” said Fred, with a mulish expression,_ bidding Ginny onward with the tilt of his chin before looking back at his Godfather, _“he’s our dad!”_

Sirius was sarcasm personified, _“And how are you going to explain how you knew Arthur was attacked before the hospital even let his wife know?”_

_“What does that matter?” said George hotly._

Before Hermione could explore her clock based cover story, Sirius was on his feet. “You not be half so arrogant if you knew what he was protecting! You would not put—”

 _Ginny said, “Somebody else could have told us…”_ Hermione was so proud of Ginny for her analytical mind. She’d gone right there with no input from anyone else. _“We could have heard it somewhere other than Harry…”_

_“Like who?” said Sirius impatiently. “Listen, your dad’s been hurt while on duty for the Order and the circumstances are fishy enough without his children knowing about it seconds after it happened, you could seriously damage the Order’s —”_

Again, before Hermione could speak, she felt anger and rage and pain surge through the bond. It was so hot and so intense that it stole her breath for a long second. Oh, her boys. They hurt so deeply, but all she could see on their faces was anger. How easily someone might be fooled. 

_“We don’t care about the dumb Order!” shouted Fred._

He, too, had noticed Dumbledore’s preoccupation with Voldemort, and it was clear that he was done with the Order coming ahead of the people who comprised it. The Greater Good had no meaning in this moment. 

_“It’s our dad dying we’re talking about!” yelled George._

Hermione held Ginny. The young girl flinched, hard. Hermione knew that the chances of Arthur’s death were high. This entire family would be entirely lost without him. He was quiet and steadfast. He held them together, made it so that they could settle squabbles. He worked hard. He was teaching her boys what it meant to be men, and the pain they were feeling in this moment was indescribable to the point that Hermione could not feel it all. 

_“Your father knew what he was getting into, and he won’t thank you for messing things up for the Order!” said Sirius angrily in his turn. “This is how it is — this is why you’re not in the Order — you don’t understand — there are things worth dying for!”_

Hermione interjected, “I think you forget to whom you are speaking.” She said this softly, to diffuse the situation, “All of us in this room have directly faced him, all of us, save you and Remus.” 

With that, the room sobered. Ginny had not faced Voldemort, but Hermione did not intend to let that happen anytime soon. It was not expected that a child would fight an adult’s war, or it should not be expected. Anyone who did was someone with whom Hermione had a major problem. 

But the Black-Lupin’s would not be swayed, and short of sneaking out, which they were loathe to do because it would only upset Molly, there was little to do. They fell into restless slumbers on the sofas in the lounge, waking when Molly came to say, pale and shaking, that Arthur had survived. Molly added, “You ought to get some rest while you’re able.” 

“I’d really rather see Arthur.” Hermione insisted, “Isn’t there something I can do?” 

Molly smiled, and brushed her off gently. She crawled into bed with her boys, and held them close, carding her fingers through Fred’s hair and counting the flecks of color in George’s eyes. They eventually slept, though blessedly she did not dream. 

Later, they all went to Mungo’s. Harry wasn’t allowed to go, as his parents were all but keeping him under lock and key. Hermione reluctantly offered to stay and take care of him so that Remus and Sirius might visit, but Molly looked so baffled at the merest suggestion that she stay back. She hadn’t meant it. 

She was only desperate to do something. She knew, somehow, that this came back to her. Still, she was glad to go, if only because she knew her boys wanted her close. They said nothing, but Hermione felt what they felt, and she knew they took some small comforts in feeling her near to them. They acted as though they were unaware of the gentle touches and the extra cuddles. Hermione was happy to provide them without comment. 

Mrs. Weasley aroused her suspicions when she pulled them aside on the bustling street in Muggle London, “Do not,” She instructed them, “Draw attention to one another, whatever you do.” 

They nodded. It was easy to slink back into old roles, even though it was hard emotionally with Arthur so ill. It was hard mentally because they had another reason to keep close. Clearly, they were under threat. Nodding sagely, Hermione crossed the barrier with Ron, nodding even when he made some comment about doctors being nutters that hack people up. 

She patted his hand for good measure in front of the chatty Ward Sister. When she slipped away, Hermione kept up the facade, knowing they were likely being watched. In doing so, she adopted a low but bland tone, and asked him, “My mother’s a real nutter, isn’t she? My father, too, in a way, I suppose?”

“You know I didn’t—” He colored vividly and looked at his shoes before smiling gently, “Sorry, ’Mione.”

Hermione was certain, given the way she was touching his arm and the way he was coloring, that to anyone looking that it was look as though she had just flirted with Ron. Hermione felt like she’d licked an ash tray for even thinking such a thing, but a girl had to do what she had to do to keep Arthur safe. 

The ward was sparsely populated.

Hermione knew this was good for conversation, but very bad indeed for Arthur’s safety. He could be set upon in his vulnerable state and finished off. She tried to block this thought as it crossed her mind, but she was unsuccessful. Inwardly, she told her boys she was being paranoid, but they had the same training she did. There was no room for paranoia in their training, and Remus had quashed any dismissal of a safety issue. 

They let her visit him with Fred and George. She knew she should have kept up the charade, but she needed to be with her boys in this moment. They each needed her and she needed them both. Hermione was glad to see that Arthur looked normal, sounded of himself, though pale. He brushed off concerns as an on-duty accident. Though they were obviously skeptical, the relief that flooded the bond when he began  to speak was so palpable that Hermione sagged slightly against the bed. 

His medical prognosis was good, except that they could not staunch the flow of blood from the puncture wounds. The bandages were regularly saturated with blood, and the tang of blood filled the air. He explained that the wounds would not stop bleeding. 

Hermione kept her voice low, “I could fix that.”

She knew she could fix it. She felt it in her very bones. And to think that she had tried to stay back. She knew now why she had been so anxious to help. Her magic knew that it could help Arthur. She could help Arthur. 

He glanced at her sharply. “You must not and you may not.” He took a swig of the Blood-Replenisher that was mixed into a drink he was compelled to consume continually. 

“Dad…” George tried, watching the blood spill slowly from his father’s body. “It won’t hurt her.”

That wasn’t totally true. It would hurt, to a point, but they could manage it. She could handle it, and she would do for Arthur’s health and well-being. She could deal with it, he could not. She was willing and able, and they needed him home, healthy, and on his feet. 

At the sake time, Fred took up the cause in another way. “We wouldn’t let the magic—”

They wouldn’t let it take hold within her. They would all work to return it to the earth where it could be purified, just as they would one day do for Voldemort. 

Arthur’s drink sloshed onto his linens. “I’ve said no!”

“But it can only help you.” Hermione returned, noting his pale gums. As the daughter of an oral surgeon and a dentist, she knew what that said about blood loss, “You must…” 

“You should have stayed at Hogwarts.” Arthur murmured, as Hermione tried to help him tidy up before Molly took charge in banishing the mess,“I don’t know why anyone let you leave before Term ended. What a way to raise—”

“Arthur!” Molly chided gently, “You were going to tell us all about your ward mates.”

Hermione had started that discussion as a safety assessment, but the point stood that even the lady with the strange chunk of her leg missing didn’t seem as big a threat as what was unspoken all around them. “I’d really like to—”

_When you say you were ‘on duty,’” Fred interrupted in a low voice, “what were you doing?”_

_“You were guarding it, weren’t you?” said George quietly. “The weapon? The thing You-Know-Who’s after?”_

_“George, be quiet!” snapped Mrs. Weasley._

_“Anyway,” said Mr. Weasley in a raised voice._

Hermione cut him off, “Harry’s said that he’s certain that he’s looking for something in the Ministry. What level has blue torches?” 

_“That’s enough,” said Mrs. Weasley crossly. “You can come and say good-bye afterward. Go on. . . .”_

_They trooped back into the corridor.  Fred raised his eyebrows. “Fine,” he said coolly, rummaging in his pockets, “be like that. Don’t tell us anything.”_

_“Looking for these?” said George, holding out what looked like a tangle of flesh-colored string._

_“You read my mind,” said Fred, grinning,_ because his brother had in fact done so _. “Let’s see if St. Mungo’s puts Imperturbable Charms on its ward doors, shall we?”_

They tried to get the ears to work, but it was no use. There was a bit of sound, but it was cut through by static. It was almost as if the Weasley parents expected this of them. Hermione sighed, and pulled the ear from her own. “I say we try to get in the ward.” 

When they had no success, Hermione knew what she had to do. She was glad that she was telepathic and could feel emotional responses, because they worked out a plan while Ginny and Ron went to the tearoom, in total silence. They looked for all the world three people generally aware of one another, but entirely uninterested.  

When they were admitted anew, Hermione made short work of going to give Arthur a hug goodbye. When her fingers ghosted over his wounds, she drew enough energy out of him to understand the source of the pain. 

It didn’t work like they’d planned. She’d only meant to take a small amount to hasten the healing process or understand the anti-coagulation issues. She’d moved out of instinct, a bone deep knowing that she had to do something. 

When her fingers connected with the edge of the bandage, her breath quickened. She felt the same pull she had not two years ago. She’d barely thought the word, barely let it fill her mind behind the pain caused by the dark magic clashing within her, when she was being pulled away, firmly but not roughly. 

“I can—” Hermione breathed, pain wracking her soul, as her boys pulled her to them, “Let me end it.”

“You can’t, Hermione, not now.” George replied, his tone apologetic. “Breathe…”

“What’s—” Molly cried, looking to George, who was pushing Hermione at Fred as though he wanted as much space between her and Arthur as possible. Hermione could feel him pulling up purifying magic, raw and untouched, from the earth. “George!”

Fred’s heart thundered against her ear as he smoothed back her hair. The pads of his thumbs traced her face. Hermione tried to match his breathing. His hand fell to her back, soothing and searching. 

Hermione tried, “I’m fine, truly.” She felt rattled by the truth, but physically and mentally well. “You both don’t need to worry.” 

“And Dad?” Fred let go, gently stepping back with a hand on her elbow as George held a chair steady. 

“Not him.” Hermione swore, as she sank into a chair and took the vial of lemon extract and sniffed it once, to ground herself. “It didn’t stay. He’s clean. It only touched him.” Hermione repeated, swearing, “He’s clean.”

George answered his mother with a gentle whisper, “We need to talk to Sirius. Dad was bitten by nothing short of Voldemort’s soul.” 

“What?” Molly demanded. “I don’t understand.”

“I can fix it.” Hermione assured her, allowing, “In time.” 

“He’s desperate to have whatever you’re after.” Fred revealed what he had heard in Hermione’s mind, “Desperate enough to risk his soul for it.”

For the second time, they fled to Grimmauld. This time, they slipped away with smiles pasted on their faces, the fear in their hearts fluttering as it had a day before. The differences in their departure did nothing to lessen the terror they felt, nor the desperation clawing at them to do something. 

* * *

This time, there was no diary to cleanse. All they could do was wait, knowing a snake was out there, ready to strike. It was a feeling like none other, and one that cast a dark shadows over the strains of _God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs._ Hermione could not get the words out of her head. 

“ _God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs,_

_Let nothing ye dismay!_

_Remember Harry Potter_

_Was born on summer’s day!_

_Oh, where is Harry Potter to save us from our doom?”_

Currently, Harry was sorting through his Christmas haul, gushing over his broomstick kit from Ron and the books from his parents. The planner from her and the twins was splayed open on the floor, likely because he’d thrown it. Hermione had only been trying to give him a practical gift, but now the truth seemed apparent. Like it or not, it was clear that time was running out. Soon, they would stand or fall as one. 

She knew what she had to do. By way of unspoken farewell, she kissed her boys goodbye under the guise of offering impartial chess advice. Hermione never let on, but she always secretly rooted for the one who was sure to lose. It seemed fairest that way. The house was bustling, so she slipped from the drawing room without notice. 

Hermione had had just enough of Percy, and his petty behavior. His father was in hospital, and he had sent back his jumper. His father had nearly died by the action of a horcrux’d snake, and he was disavowing him, not only publicly, but on this the most personal of holidays, in a way designed to hurt his brokenhearted mother. 

Hermione wasn’t going to stand for anyone hurting Molly Weasley. She added her coat over her jumper, and began to stroll nonchalantly through the house to the front door. The snow at the back was just too high to tramp through in secret. 

 “Just where,” Called a suspicious looking werewolf, from where he stood on the wide stair, “Do you suppose you are going?”

“Oh, erm.” Hermione looked around quickly, hoping Fred and George were still engrossed in their game of chess. “My parents asked me to water their houseplants.”

“Did they indeed?” Remus didn’t look all that convinced as he came down his staircase. “That’s quite funny, as they also asked that we pop over and collect the mail. Who knew there had to be so many people interested in the running of a vacant household?”

“I promise that if you let me leave,” Hermione knew that directness was her only choice. He could hear her heartbeat, and it was thereby hard to prevaricate, “and act like you’ve no idea I’ve gone, it will benefit us all in the end.”

“I’m sure.” He flicked a glance over to the door to the hall that led to the drawing and dining rooms, “It appears, however, that you were not as stealth as you’d hoped to be.”

Hermione saw the two people leaning against the door before she turned to face them, and sighed. 

 Fred asked, a grin splitting his face, though he was trying to hide it. He looked faintly reproving, “Going out without us?”

George offered his own question, leaning against the other side of the doorway. “Off to right some wrongs?’

Hermione knew that her blocks had slipped, or they had sensed something was up. With a lift of Fred’s eyebrow, Hermione knew it had been the latter. 

Fred began, “We’re hurt.”

“Crushed.” George chimed in. 

“Discarded, on Christmas, too.” Fred looked at his brother, a challenge in his eyes, “Deserted.”

“Displaced.” Hermione had never hated her father for cooking up that silly name. George got sum a thrill out of naming al sorts of words to describe anything, anything that fit the situation and began with the required letter.

Fred continued, “Desolated.”

“Despondent.” George raised the bar. 

“Dramatic.” Hermione ended their silly little game and slid on her mittens. “I’ve the address. I don’t intend that we should be late for dinner.” 

They nodded, and sobered. This was a real mission, and the time for games and banter was done. Hermione slid her beanie over the top of her messy braid, and did her best to visualize the nearest tube station. She had been there, so at least a side-along would give them somewhere to go. 

* * *

In the corridor in front of a third floor flat, Hermione rapped on the door, reminding her boys, _“I’ll do the talking, thank you.”_

Shooting dual looks her way, they quirked eyebrows. Mentally, they agreed with all due faux-servility and teasing. Hermione had wanted to come alone for a reason. They needed to not antagonize Percy. They needed to sit down, shut up, and let her play the game.  

Percy opened the door without even checking who it was. His nose went up once he saw that they were not the Chinese food he was expecting. Penny was with her family, and it seemed that Percy had claimed work to do in an effort to avoid the whole holiday. 

He reluctantly admitted them, “What are you doing, running about London on Christmas?” 

Hermione replied, “It’s certainly not how I expected to spend my holiday.” Hermione saw that the small table was covered with work documents, and that Percy was sipping water. 

Fred and George lowered themselves into chairs. Percy was stern, “Why are you here?”

“We’re here because we’ve got some facts to put right.” Hermione replied, “Give us five minutes, would you?” 

Percy inclined his head, picking up another folio so as to have something to do. 

Hermione did not sit. “Percy, I understand your feelings were hurt. But the truth was, your parents had a point, as you did. You’ve earned your job, but we are being watched. It is not because of the Order. It’s because—”

“Hermione…” Percy’s tone was cautioning. He did not want to talk about the triadic bond that had defined their childhoods, nor the secrecy with which they had been raised to treat it. In this way, Hermione knew that a large part of Percy was not yet lost. 

“Yes, that’s why. They think it’s Harry and Ron.” Hermione revealed, “Now the fact of the matter is is that your father, your father, nearly died not two days ago, and this morning, you sent your jumper back.”

His eyes narrowed behind his glasses, “I’ll thank you not to interfere in things you don’t understand.”

“You are the one who doesn’t understand!” Hermione returned. 

Percy’s dream was the Ministry, but the fact was that the Ministry was playing on every insecurity he had in order to weaken him, was something that could not be ignored. They were giving Percy just enough carrot to keep whacking him with the proverbial stick. 

“Do they need to apologize? Yes!” Hermione was surprised to see the surprise on Percy’s face. Hermione empathized with him. It was hard to always feel as though you had to live in the shadows, as though people did not see who you truly were, no matter how you tried to prove yourself. “You’re owed that, yes.” 

“But so do you.” Hermione asserted, not letting Percy look away as he flushed, “Your father is a good man. Do you know he never took a promotion so that he could be there for you? So that he could actively parent?” And if there was one thing he was, Arthur Weasley was the best of fathers, in league with her own father, “And yet you stood there, and insulted the people who gave you everything they had, because they weren’t ambitious enough.” 

“Dad wasn’t trying to protect the Order.” Fred interjected gently. He thought that Hermione was being too hard Percy. This empathy struck Hermione as incongruent with the anger Fred felt towards his brother. Hermione knew it was possible to be sympathetic and angry, and she was humbled by his emotions for Percy. “Fuck the Order.”

“He was protecting us.” George looked between his brother and his wife. “Whatever he’s been doing, he’s been doing it to keep us safe.” 

“And he was trying to shield you, because he knows how much your future at the Ministry means to you.” Hermione concluded, “But I’m not here for them or for us.”

“Why are you here, then?” Percy asked, and there was no anger in his tone, only confusion and pain and fear. He grasped his folio and Hermione saw that his knuckles were white. 

“I’m here for you. I just want to know, will you be able to live with yourself knowing that, in your family’s time of need, when we need to stand together, that you let somebody else decide what was right?” Hermione asked, “If you’re comfortable knowing that someone assumed you were stupid and malleable and incapable of finding the path of righteousness on your own, I’ll leave. But if you want to stand up for your values, your beliefs in tradition and honor, I’ve got a proposition for you.”

Percy swallowed, “What’s that, then?”

“You’re going to get cleaned up, get dressed, wipe the ink off your face, and you’re going to give your parents,” She extended the gift that Percy must have thought was for him, and set it on the table, “This lovely wrapped calendar that has all pertinent family dates in it, and you’re going to have a chat after pudding.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.” Percy protested, “That’s not a proposition.” 

“I’m not. I don’t trust you enough anymore to let you in on the plans as I might have done. That’s the price you’re paying, we’re all paying.” Hermione assured him, “I just thought you’d want to look your best before we truss you up and haul you home like a Christmas goose.”

“You can’t—” Percy was on the defensive. 

“Can’t we?” Hermione returned, “Don’t test me. I don’t care if you shout and row, but you will be having it out. There are things you need to know, but if you think I’m telling anyone who puts the Ministry above family, you’re crackers.” 

Percy bristled, looking to the door to his flat. “I don’t like being dictated to, Hermione.”

He was considering asking them to leave. He clearly did not like the things he was thinking, not about them, but about himself. Hermione really did understand, and she knew that she had one more shot to make him understand that they all needed and wanted and loved each other. They didn’t have to live in each other’s pockets, but to let the powers that be erode their basic bonds was nothing short of manipulation and assault. 

“Look!” Hermione insisted, “There is something in the Ministry that is coming after Weasleys. Would you like to protect yourself so you can be Minister one day, or would you like your mother to bury her son?”  Hermione slanted a glance at Percy, “The brother I once knew told me that knowledge was power, and it was the measure of the person if they stood for what was right with that power.”

George asked, from where he sat, leg crossed over his knee as though he was discussing quidditch or the weather with his mates. Hermione felt his hope and his fear mingling with hers and with Fred’s in her blood. “Tell us, does he still exist?”

Fred leaned forward in his own chair, “Because trust us, we won’t be coming back.”

Hermione added, verbally, above all of the mental communication flying around Percy without his awareness, “The Percy we love never once advocated every man for himself.” 

George mused, his eyes flicking from his older brother to his brogues. “But perhaps—”

“Enough!” Percy shouted, “Enough!”

Silence reigned for a long moment as their hearts pounded. 

Hermione broke the silence. Percy had a choice to make, and that choice to articulate. Hermione hoped beyond hope that he would need the jumper hidden in her pocket. She saw his answer in his eyes, and still, she needed to give him the chance to articulate himself. 

Hermione spoke, “Well?”

“Don’t touch my stuff while I’m in the shower.” Percy declared, “I trust you have data, because I’m going to want to be fully informed.”

“Percy, Percy, Percy.” George tutted. 

Fred looked at his older brother as though he had never seen him before, “Would we risk dragging your sorry arse home without it?”

“I’ve the word of the Dolores Umbridge that the Ministry is looking for the Triad in its midst.” Hermione leveled a glance at him. “I trust you’ve met?”

“A right toad, isn’t she?” George offered up some level of vulnerability. Percy could turn around and repeat this and it would mean their skins. They all knew he wouldn’t do that, not to anyone, even if he hated them. Percy wasn’t a snitch. He was rigid, but he was principled. He was traditional, but he had the courage to stand for what was right in the face of centuries of wrongdoing.

“No morals or values.” Fred agreed, “Kisses arse without considering her own ambitions beyond that of power.”

Fred’s message was clear. Don’t let that be you, Percy. Don’t let power cloud the reasons you chose your path. 

Hermione chided them gently, “Boys.”

“They’re right.” Percy admitted, “She’s not a principled person. There are many such people in the world.”

Hermione had always known that Percy would take the opening they’d given him. “You’re not one, though.” 

 She would never let on, but she knew that Percy would have come without it. He wanted his family. He missed them. They missed him. But in giving him proof after he’d decided his path, she had allowed him to really ask himself if was going to be able to live with himself if he had not come home, allowed him to make that choice without proof, and then given him the proof that had shown him his own instincts had been right all along. 

When Percy came to the door of Grimmauld with his jumper on and a gift in his hands, Molly sobbed. Hermione and her boys slipped from the room as Percy wrapped his lanky arms around his short mother. When they were beyond hearing, Hermione cuddled up to them, and let herself feel, for just one long moment, the sense of safety, surety, and rightness flowing through the bond. 

* * *

Things were darker still when they returned to school.

It hadn’t started well, on the whole, Hermione thought. They’d come back to school via the Knight Bus to avoid any sort of attention. Hermione took the center seat, between Fred and George, and spent the entire time with her head buried in their chests in turn, fingers tight in their jumpers and coats. 

They sped and lurched and she hated every second of it. It was worse than flying. It was worse than busses in London. It was by far the most horrible experience of her entire life. When they picked up again after another stop, Hermione whimpered, and gasped when the swooping in her belly became unbearable. “Oh, fuck, fuck…” She breathed against Fred, “I can’t.” 

They went sharply around a bend and George tightened his grip on her shoulder. “Breathe through it, Kitten.”

Fred’s arms were tight around her as they both poured feelings of safety and protection into the bond. Hermione fought to draw a breath. Fred assured her verbally, “You’re doing so well. We’re so proud of you.”   

“Most magically powerful witch of her age and she cries on a bus.” Ron noted. “Seems to me—”

“Shut up, Ron.” Her boys said this over her ringing ears and her burning face. 

The bus literally loop-de-looped in a narrow street. Hermione pressed a scream against Fred as George shoved her back, keeping her bum in the seat when nearly everyone else had rattled and bumped around. Hermione felt her tears spill anew as her head spun, “Fucking hell. Fuck. Can’t they drive the bloody fucking bus like normal fucking wizards?” 

“Well.” Harry mused when the bus was level again and Hermione was patting her tearstained face as if she had not spent the last few minutes trying to curl up and die. “I learned something new today.”

“What’s that?” Hermione snapped, fixing her hair. She knew it would only last for the few minutes she had between stunts that Stan pulled, but at least if she was going to die, she would do so on her own terms. 

“Oh, shite.” The bus jolted, and she gasped as she felt the floor drop out from under her. She sagged back into her seat, projecting a state of wellness mentally. 

“You’ve an awful mouth, Hermione.” Harry feigned shock, “I didn’t know you knew so many dirty words.” 

Hermione stopped a mental sidebar in its tracks, just as Fred was about to crack some joke. “I wouldn’t say that, were I you.” 

“Duly noted.” Fred leaned back in his own chair as they gained altitude. 

Hermione cursed again, digging her fingernails into George’s arm. He merely grinned and  nodded, “Miss Granger is very loquacious, isn’t she?”

Hermione snorted and prayed for her own death as Fred added, “Unreservedly so, wouldn’t you say so, George?”

“Indeed I would, Fred.” George agreed, smoothing a hand down her arm to release her death grip. 

“I hate everyone and everything.” Hermione gripped the sticky handles of her seat. 

Fred shoved her gently to the side as they lurched around a turn. “But mostly this bloody fucking bus, right?” 

When they were finally on solid ground by the gates of Hogwarts, Hermione declared, “I am never, ever, getting on that thing, ever again.”

Harry smiled, “Well, look at it this way, you gave us a vocabulary lesson. Just frame it that way.”

“Merlin forbid Mum ever lets Gin go on the bus though.” Ron asserted, with a comical glance at her. Ginny was coming back by Floo. Molly did not trust her alone on the bus with so many people staring at Harry. 

Hermione turned to her boys, who were bringing up the rear in lazy fashion. “Ron just said I’m a bad influence.”

Fred pretended to consider the notion as he re-shrank their trunks. “It depends on how—”

George carried the owl cage, and tapped his wand against his teeth. “—you go about defining ‘bad.’” 

Hermione took the cat basket and stalked up the winding drive, snow flying all around her, her hair whipping around in indignation and laughter. 

* * *

She should have known that it was a bad omen, though. She could not have dreamed how bad it would be. She anticipated Hagrid’s probation and further decrees. She anticipated the air of foreboding and the fear in the castle. 

 She could not have anticipated a breakout of Azkaban. Pettigrew, Dolohov, Rookwood, all free. Lestrange, on the loose. She could not have anticipated that learning of Bode’s murder in Mungo’s would let her know that the thing they were seeking was in the Department of Mysteries. Hermione was steely with rage and anger. 

By Valentine’s Day, she was ready to act. She demanded that Harry meet her in the Three Broomsticks, irrespective of his date. It wasn’t like she had any real designs upon him, and if Miss Chang could not understand that some things came before canoodling at Puddifoot’s or a leisurely day spent in the Room of Requirement, then she was not the girl for Harry. Sure, Harry was a tactless boy, but there was more to life than drama. 

In accordance with her plan to go public, Umbridge banned _The Quibbler_ with all due haste. Fred and George made sure the black market had a steady supply, and snuck orders in and out with WWW orders and correspondence. They further did an amazing bit of charms work to hide the text of the article from teachers. Hermione was wild about her devious geniuses. Absolutely wild. 

George caught onto her thoughts and pressed a hot kiss to her shoulder. “You just love us because we hang absurd posters in the common room, so you get to play at being in a snit, and take yourself off to bed.” 

“Well.” Hermione bit her lip as she included Fred in this conversation. He was too distracted by the way she was pressed up against him, and contrary to popular opinion, her intention for arranging this meeting had not been shagging each other rotten, within the boundaries set forth by the heteronormative edicts outlined and agreed to, though not with much enthusiasm. It was a meaningless social construct, and she wanted nothing more than to be rid of it. “I’m technically in a bed. It looks like mine.”

Fred snorted and cupped her hip as George laughed, warm and sated. 

Fred’s hand moved lower pulling George's hand down along with his, “Semantics.” 

Hermione let her eyes drift closed as the passion she’d thought to be cooling sparked anew. She was not adverse to fanning the flames, just a for while. “We’ve got work to do. We can’t just—”

They were quite happy to show her that, in fact, they could _just_. And so when they did _just_ , Hermione was quite happy to be proven wrong. 

* * *

The next morning, when Harry told her what he’d dreamed about the night before, it took everything Hermione had to prevaricate, _“Well, I think we should just try and forget what you saw,” said Hermione firmly. “And you ought to put in a bit more effort on your Occlumency from now on.”_

After that, she had an emergency meeting with her boys, one that did not include sex, and instead was nothing short of a plan of attack. Things were escalating, and they only continued to do so as they waited for the other shoe to drop. Harry began to see more and more despite his shields. They were strong in day, but weak during REM sleep. There was little that could change that, unless he forever gave up sleeping. Hermione hated this feeling that she was waiting for, anticipating, something awful to happen. 

When it happened, it happened fast, and the shoe dropped hard. Hermione ran from the room, getting all of the students out of the DA meeting with the help of Fred and George and shoving them in different directions, telling the to disperse. 

Hermione bumped into Percy as he she slowed, desperate to figure out he had been able to warn her with the letter. It had come seconds after her wards had been activated and seconds after she’d begun evacuating the DA. They’d gotten it from an elf so quickly because he was in the castle. 

He looked at her, white-faced, and pasted a smug smile on his face. “You’ll want to attend Potter, won’t you, Miss Granger?” 

She went along with the game, and blessed Percy Weasley as he took notes of everything anyone did or said, obviously toadying, though she knew better. Percy was taking accurate and objective notes.

 She blessed Ginny for coming up the name of the DA, for it was the name that saved them. She blessed Fred and George for their charms work, so that Marietta would never forget her transgressions. She blessed Kingsley for modifying Marietta’s memory. 

She was proud of herself for not blowing them all to smithereens when they all hit the deck, giving Dumbledore time to escape. He was powerful, but his bluster was cover for her to do magic at a magnitude he could never fathom. He gave her an opening, and she took it, with a wave of her, hexed the aurors, even poor Kingsley, to give Dumbledore time to escape. 

 _The notices had gone up all over the school overnight, but they did not explain how every single person within the castle seemed to know that Dumbledore had overcome two Aurors, the High Inquisitor, the Minister of Magic, and his Junior Assistant to escape,_ nor how he had done it. Hermione was happy to keep Fred and George’s careful fanning of the rumor mill secret. She knew they’d keep her role in the whole thing quiet. They’d told the castle, and she herself had done it, and let Dumbledore have the credit.  

It got yet worse, if such things were possible, with the new Head of the school and her Squad of Goons Hermione wanted so badly to squish. She wanted to make the entirety of Wizarding society learn about World War Two. She wanted to scream and blow up the castle. 

It never occurred to her that she might actually have to do it, though the plan was in place for such an occurrence. When it came, she wished she felt shocked. She wished she felt something other than calm and exactingly aware of every second that was passing. 

Ron came running towards her, as best he was able. “She’s got Harry!”

Mentally, she knew it was go-time, and said as much. Umbridge had Harry in her clutches. She hissed, “Get Remus! Get Remus, now.” 

Ron went off as best and as unobtrusively as possible. She counted down with Fred in her head as George, with his steady hands, lit the fuses. They were blowing up the castle. Well, partially, but they needed a diversion so that Remus could get Harry out of Umbridge’s clutches. He had to keep a low profile, but since she had found nothing objectionable about his lessons other than that they were taught by a werewolf, there was little she might do to him. 

Hermione could not believe the display of brilliance she saw in her mind as she raced through a hidden passage to their location, her feet flying over the concealed stone corridor. _Dragons comprised entirely of green-and-gold sparks were soaring up and down the corridors, emitting loud fiery blasts and bangs as they went. Shocking-pink Catherine wheels five feet in diameter were whizzing lethally through the air like so many flying saucers. Rockets with long tails of brilliant silver stars were ricocheting off the walls. Sparklers were writing swearwords in midair of their own accord. Firecrackers were exploding like mines everywhere._

According to what she was seeing through her mind, Umbridge was furious because the fireworks kept expanding and multiplying no matter what she did, and Hermione hoped that Remus was, even now, doing his bit to sprint Harry away. Hermione knew that she would see the signal when she exited the tunnel if all went according to plan. 

And there, when she emerged from the tunnel, there was a single flare going up through the window on the other side of the castle as she looked across the courtyard. She breathed a sigh of relief, and went off to find her boys. They were quite enjoying themselves. Hermione pulled them into an alcove in the fracas, and quite uncaring if anyone did come upon them, kissed them soundly. 

They seemed taken aback at the strength and intensity of her ardor. The bond blazed with her want, and their eyes darkened when they looked at her. Regretfully pulling away from Fred and then George and then Fred again when George distracted her with a hand up her blouse, Hermione whispered, “Have I ever mentioned that you’re very smart, and…” She shivered at the evidence, “Very good with your hands?”

They didn’t need to be told her that their little display of pyrotechnics had inspired her to greater heights of desire. It wasn’t the fire. It was the mere observation that they were using their manifold skills for what was right and what was just, and that they were so brilliant, and only she had always known that, always, and she was so proud that everyone else was seeing that, too. 

Hermione’s lust cooled, but her pride remained all through the evening.

People absolutely clamored up to make orders, and they were officially sold out and selling waiting lists as long as their arms. Hermione, in order to preserve the facade, merely sat quietly, pretending to do homework as she kept the tallies and records from across the room. She could not believe how much they were selling across the houses.

It wasn’t the money, it was only that her boys were finally, finally coming into their own and people were recognizing it. 

_“Oh, why don’t we have a night off?” said Hermione brightly, as a silver-tailed Weasley rocket zoomed past the window. “After all, the Easter holidays start on Friday, we’ll have plenty of time then. . . .”_

_“Are you feeling all right?” Ron asked, staring at her in disbelief._

_“Now you mention it,” said Hermione happily, “d’you know . . . I think I’m feeling a bit . . . rebellious.”_

Soon after, they closed up shop for the night, and slipped off to bed. Everyone knew they were counting up tallies and making plans to fill orders. Everyone was very wrong. Naturally, Hermione wasn’t going to tell them so. There were some secrets about her boys that were hers, and hers alone. 

It also turned out that the post-float afterglow was marvelous for languid kisses and strategic planning. They needed to force Voldemort to show his hand. What better way to stir up dissension than to do so within the school by promoting all out anarchy? Or, as Fred termed it, a prank war. 

Hermione thought it genius. It would enable them to create a diversion to let Harry have unfettered access to his parents to explore his dreams, something he could not claim. Even Lupin Lessons had been cancelled this term, by mutual accord. The time for training was over. 

They stayed at Hogwarts for Easter. Her mother sent a missive that was quite chilly and very concerned underneath the frost. Dad wrote and said that he would come and fetch her, muggle-repellant wards or no muggle-repellant wards, if she was not on the platform when they came to the station. Hermione sighed and tried to focus. 

They recruited Harry, who was keen for any reason to talk to his parents, to open the Floo and get a message out in the meantime. They needed Remus’s support to carry out the plan. And so, with mere days left in the term, with NEWTs almost done, the twins put the plan into action. 

Hermione spent that day building up the plan, making it clear to all and sundry that she was decidedly on the outs with Ron and Harry. She even went so far to cry to Lav and Parvati about i. They saw right through her, and held their peace when Hermione smirked and offered them a portion of famous Weasley fudge. They were watching their figures, but they partook, under the promise that all would be made known, and she simply needed memories and a cover story. Parvati began to tell wild stories in case anyone did pop about in her memories or dosed her. 

Hermione went off to her meeting with McGonagall and had a marvelous time discussing her social justice aspirations, egged on and encouraged by a thrilled Minerva. They enjoyed watching Umbridge turn redder and redder and redder. It was nice to know that she was well on her way to being a full-time rabble rouser in the best sense. 

That afternoon, she gave Harry some final encouragement just as the bells peeled. _“Dumbledore sacrificed himself to keep you in school, Harry!” whispered Hermione, raising her book to hide her face from Umbridge_ in Remus’s class _. “And if you get thrown out today it will all have been for nothing!”_

Hermione raised the alert when Harry slipped from her sight and went to her post. She worked with her boys to pull this off, and knew that, with the first crash and bang, that their plan was truly in motion. Hermione could not give herself away and watch, but she saw the swamp bloom to life, and it was beautiful. 

Hermione saw two flashes of red hair, and mentally prepared herself for this moment. It was hurting, hurting so badly, to watch her boys, to watch the men she loved, be cornered as they were, and do nothing. Hermione could only bide her time. Watching them leave her was hellish. 

_They raised their wands and said together, “Accio Brooms!”_

They pulled on the bond, and the act of freeing their brooms was utter child’s play. It was, however, a beautiful piece of imagery. _Fred and George’s broomsticks, one still trailing the heavy chain and iron peg with which Umbridge had fastened them to the wall, were hurtling along the corridor toward their owners. They turned left, streaked down the stairs, and stopped sharply in front of the twins, the chain clattering loudly on the flagged stone floor._

_“We won’t be seeing you,” Fred told Professor Umbridge, swinging his leg over his broomstick._

_“Yeah, don’t bother to keep in touch,” said George, mounting his own._

_Fred looked around at the assembled students, and at the silent, watchful crowd._ His gaze lingered for a long second on Hermione. He seemed to be able to see that the tears in her eyes weren’t all affectations, even if she was doing her best to hide these irrational feelings from flooding the bond. 

_“If anyone fancies buying a Portable Swamp, as demonstrated upstairs, come to number ninety-three, Diagon Alley — Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes,” he said in a loud voice. “Our new premises!”_

_“Special discounts to Hogwarts students who swear they’re going to use our products to get rid of this old bat,” added George, pointing at Professor Umbridge._

_“STOP THEM!” shrieked Umbridge, but it was too late. As the Inquisitorial Squad closed in, Fred and George kicked off from the floor, shooting fifteen feet into the air, the iron peg swinging dangerously below. Fred looked across the hall at the poltergeist bobbing on his level above the crowd.“Give her hell from us, Peeves.”_

Hermione turned in the opposite direction, and did her job. She found Harry, and made sure he was safe. That job completed, she headed to the seventh floor corridor, and walked back and forth, knowing that she needed to see Fred and George. The door appeared, and she slipped inside. 

There they were. Hermione launched herself at them. “Oh, you were magnificent!” She squeezed George tight, and kissed him full on the mouth in her joy. 

She, in turn, embraced Fred. “I almost believed you were really leaving before graduating. Oh, it was glorious.” 

“Leave without our NEWTs?” Fred looked to George, “Can’t imagine what the missus’d say about that.”

“She’d murder us in our bed, that’s what.” George returned, in that same thickening of their natural accents. 

“Oh, shut up.” Hermione returned.

“We only said we were leaving.” Fred reminded her, “Never put in the paperwork with our Head of House to withdraw. And since she loves us,—”

“—and wants to do things to our delectable bodies because she worships our dirty, depraved, debauched minds,” George continued, earning himself his own glare. 

“—we never filed it. And since we’ve sat all our NEWTs with the help of said Goddess, we’re five steps ahead.”

“And thus, like the good little pranksters we are, we will be earning our diplomas without having to go to the ceremony.” George, out of all the feats they’d pulled today, seemed most proud of this one, “Isn’t it devious?” 

“We even get to stage an all out prank war from the Room of Requirement!” They intoned this together as though she could not feel their glee. 

They were the generals behind the lines, infusing the population with new pranks, and acting as go-betweens for Hermione and the Lupin-Blacks and thus, the Order. Hermione was glad that OWLs took up their time, as between them and the pranking, no one noticed that Granger wasn’t in the common room very often. 

* * *

 _Inspired by Fred and George’s example, a great number of students were now vying for the newly vacant positions of Troublemakers-in- Chief. Filch prowled the corridors with a horsewhip ready in his hands, desperate to catch miscreants, but the problem was that there were now so many of them that he did not know which way to turn._ There were mere days left of school, but it was total chaos and anarchy. 

And then the dream came, and the time for fun and games was over. Voldemort was luring Harry to the Ministry, using a vision of a captured Sirius as bait. After assuring themselves that Sirius, was, in fact safe, Hermione had to act fast. She didn’t expect to get caught by Umbridge, but what the hell, sometimes she got lucky and nearly got murdered and ended up handing over Umbridge to a herd of centaurs. 

Fred and George, when she tripped the wards on the front door, went to help Ron, Gin, Luna, and Neville. They made short work of it, and were waiting, full of praise for the way the others hadn’t really needed them except to apparate through the castle. Ron was furious that he hadn’t been told about their continued presence in the castle, but Ginny just slapped him upside the head, and they continued onward. 

* * *

Harry ran his fingers over the spine of a book on a glowing lectern. “Book of Souls.” He read, trying to get it open. He couldn’t. 

Hermione knew without a doubt what the Weapon actually was. The weapon was knowledge. The knowledge of the triad. Voldemort would stop at nothing to get at that book, but as he wasn’t a member of triad, he couldn’t open it to read the names therein.  He thought that Harry was, in fact, a member of a triad, so of course he’d be able to open it. 

He wanted a triad. He wanted that power. Such power went beyond that of anything he could fathom. 

_The Death Eaters, as she had warned them might be there, surrounded them. “To me, Potter,” repeated the drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy as he held out his hand, palm up. They were trapped and outnumbered._

_“To me,” said Malfoy yet again._

“What makes you think I can lift this book?” Harry asked, slowly looking around. 

_Several of the Death Eaters laughed. A harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures to Harry’s left said triumphantly, “The Dark Lord always knows!”_

_“Always,” echoed Malfoy softly. “Now, give me the_ Book _, Potter.”_

“Hello, Cousin Bella,” Harry drawled, “You’re looking haggard.”

Hermione edged back, away from Harry and watched in her mind as Fred and George gripped their wands. 

“You are no nephew of mine!” She screamed, dropping the baby voice. “No son of the House of Black!” 

“Oh, but I am.” Harry declared, “In all the ways that count, I am.”

He was buying them time, Hermione realized coldly, getting them to talk. He got them talking, and he kept them talking as she worked out a plan with her boys. He enraged Bella, and turned to Malfoy. He didn’t have to play stupid, when it came to the questions about the Book. He was all too ignorant, just as they were.

“In this book,” Malfoy drawled, “you will find the names of you, and your bondmates. Tell me, Potter, are you the Focus?”

“Focus?” Harry blurted, “I’m not even sure what you’re talking about—”

“Focus?” Neville whispered, his face going white. Hermione prayed he would not glance her way. Thankfully, he did not. He dropped his gaze to the floor. Hermione knew in the next second that Neville was in on the plan. He was a brilliant actor. 

“Oh, ho-ho!” Lucius laughed, telling Harry things Hermione had never done, “The focus, my dear boy, as you know is the central conduit of a triad. The Dark Lord will not hurt you or your…loved ones.”

Harry colored, “I don’t have a—”

“I think,” Said another Death Eater, “That it’s the redheaded ones, the small ones. Why would he hide a consummated bond?”

Hermione nodded imperceptibly, and her boys shoved magic at the shelves, knocking them over like dominoes in a row. They all ran, scattering, spells flying and crashing objects. Hermione fought as valiantly as possible. There was magic everywhere, thick and bright in the room. 

She drew on years of tactical training and carefully did not draw undue attention to herself or to the twins as they fought. The whole room was chaos and nothing she had done in years previous could have prepared her for this level of activity and fear. She tramped it down, focused, and found that she oftentimes heard Remus’s voice directing her footsteps. The fray was bloody and completely without strategy beyond that of survival and keeping the Book out of Death Eater hands. 

Dolohov was hit. She’d gotten him. She’d gotten him. Hermione sighed and began to move away. Hermione heard Harry screaming, and the bond reverberating with unadulterated terror and pain. As she crumpled to the ground, her portion of the bond surging with power, she flung out a hand and was blinded by the light as she fainted. 

* * *

Hermione felt someone pushing at the bond inside of her, flooding it with light. She stirred. Then she heard voices, gentle voices, in her head. Hermione replied, her voice raspy, “Did we save the Book?” 

The affirmative was silent, but she felt it as she opened her eyes. George and Fred swam in front of her eyes, so that there seemed to be two of Fred and two of George by her bed. Hermione wanted them closer, and then, they were. It was wonderful. It was almost as if they could read her mind.

George breathed, “Hermione, we can.”

Hermione smiled. “Forgot for a second.”

“Your voice is awful.” Fred sniffed, pulling back tears. “Telepathy, please.” 

“If she’s awake and capable of making words or miming or sending up smoke signals, I suggest she starts, right now.” A voice Hermione recognized came closer as her mother pushed back the curtain. “You,” Her mother said, “Are so grounded. So grounded.” 

Hermione smiled. “Wonderful.” 

And then, of course, she fell asleep. 

 

 

 

 


	13. Summer 1996

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire chapter takes place before the start of HBP1, within the context of those events. 
> 
> The only thing that hasn't happened is Emmeline Vance's murder. 
> 
> I did not have a flat iron in '96, and the girl hardly needs a crimper.

Hermione’s hair crackled. She inhaled a breath. It wasn’t her mum’s fault that she was confused. There were still parts of the narrative they’d constructed that confused Hermione, but she wished Mum would stop poking at the whole situation like a decayed tooth. There wasn’t much she could do but repeat herself. 

“I have told you.” They had gone over and over and over this, and still her mother did not understand. A triad was not something that stayed secret for long in wartime.  “They knew because somehow, at some point—” Hermione rattled them off, “I don’t know if it was the maze, or the stone, or anything else—” Hermione summarized, “Voldemort figured it out.” 

Unfortunately, he wasn’t stupid. There was much they did not know, but they knew that Tom M. Riddle was not stupid. He had to have understood that the magic before him was nothing short of triadic magic. He believed it was coming from Harry, but beyond that, he knew nothing. Over the long term, one-third of a triad was functionally useless. 

 Hermione sipped her water, and leaned against the armchair in the deserted common room. The twins had skipped their leavers’ feast, and the ride in the boats down to the train. Hermione mourned that choice, but it was not hers to make. They said to graduate after this year with Umbridge would be to spoil their exit. Far be it from her to criticize the action that had made them legends and no doubt saved countless students. 

She continued, pulling her gaze away from the packed trunks. They were apparating home because the closest muggle train was in Inverness, and it was an eleven hour ride to Crawley. Mum wasn’t allowed on the Express. “He alerted his moles at the Ministry and they moved in on it to suss out who it was.” 

There was some blank spots there in Hermione’s logic but she knew she would figure it out given time. There was no room for supposition in this discussion with her mother. She did not say that she did not know how connected Voldemort was at the Ministry. She suspected that he was, but where and how neither she nor her boys could speculate. 

Hermione did not remind her mother that everyone involved had been totally and utterly certain it was Harry who was part of the triad. Even Umbridge had meant to crucio her to see if Harry would divulge his bondmates, or if he would step up to block the curse. Hermione had not understand why the old bat had targeted her then, but it made sense in retrospect. Thankfully, quick thinking had enabled them to lead her into the Forest. Hermione wasn’t about to tell her mother that she had almost died twice in one night. 

Listening to her mother cry once over the gaping wound on her torso had been quite enough upset. The wound looked worse than it was, and she was now, within days, nearly completely healed. The only reason she wouldn't have a horrible, nearly disfiguring scar was because of the triadic magic. It could do amazing and healing things. That was, after all, one of its purposes. 

 Instead, she added, “It also didn’t help that the damn book sealed itself, which only happens when there is a triad that hasn’t filed their paperwork and acknowledged the Soul Book.” 

The Book was meant to be hidden, secreted away in the Department of Mysteries. The whole thing had been a set up from the word ‘go’ and Hermione had blamed herself over and over for the plan they’d enacted. Remus was furious, and Hermione did not care. She could not let herself feel anything but obligation and duty. 

Mum cried, “But it’s not like he could ever get you on his side!” 

At least she did not ask again why they hadn’t simply filed their paperwork. Hermione had dissembled. The only paperwork they needed to file was a BAF, or Bond Acknowledgement Form. They didn’t need, any of them, a marriage certificate, though some triads did get them in the traditional sense. The BAF wasn’t even legally required. It was something that was meant to commemorate the Book Ceremony, which was a customary rite. 

Mum seemed bewildered by Hogwarts, by the missing stairs, the drafty passageways, and the ambient magic that made the air feel somehow different in her lungs. She had been here for a few days, and the questions hadn’t yet stopped. Hermione wished she was still asking about the Giant Squid. She truly wished that Mum would go back and stay with Madam Pomfrey. Their discussions of mediwizardry and medical technology had gotten them out of some hot water.

“Miranda,” Fred tried anew, drinking from his own mug of tea, “he knows he can’t get us to become Death Eaters.”

“It’s his objective to give us a choice.” Hermione continued, “Join him or be killed.” 

George finished. “He knows we’ll go down fighting.”

“Our aunt and uncles were cornered in a battle.” Fred explained. Mum had been somewhat surprised to know that there had been so few triads in history, and that several had come through Molly’s line. She had assumed that because Hermione knew so much, that there was a lot of data, and while there wasn’t, what they did have was carefully archived and collected. “He gave Dorcas a chance to live, to let them all live, as his Triad. She refused, and fought valiantly. When Fabian was injured, he killed her. Fabian and Gideon went down just as valiantly, but within a matter of minutes.”

“They must have known that once Dorcas was gone—” George elaborated, gently trying to help Miranda understand what must seem incomprehensible. 

She could understand the love they felt for each other. She knew that as well as she knew that there were twenty-two bones in the human skull. Hermione was certain if they could keep her focused on that, that she would understand. 

Hermione finished his statement, “That to go on living would have just been counting the days until they died.”

Fred implored Mum, “But please, please don’t mention them to Mum.” 

Mum sighed. “Can you tell me why he’s desperate to either turn you or kill you?” 

“The basic function of triadic magic is to control the flow of magic, to restore balance.” Hermione was keeping this short, sweet, overly simple, and to the point. There was no point in worrying Mum unduly, “Not only are we a destructive force in battle, but we’re principally responsible for animating dormant magic. Our goal is to send Voldemort’s magic and the magic binding Death Eaters to their vows back to the earth in order to be cleansed. In this cyclical relationship to the flow of magic, there is immense potential.” 

Mum was not so easily thrown off the train of her thoughts. Hermione knew she had been reaching this conclusion all afternoon, “So you can create and destroy magic?”

“That’s a simplistic understanding of it.” Hermione backed away from such an absolute statement, “As conduits we balance and purify.”

Voldemort had destroyed balance and made a lot of formerly light magic very dark. It went beyond one man, and was situation that could have long-term consequences if balance and harmony was not restored. In a sense, they were a triad not to defeat him, but to safeguard all magic. 

“I want the unvarnished truth.” Mum reminded them. Her stern expression was tinged with fear, which was what Hermione, what all three of them, had been most seeking to avoid. 

“Basically, yes.” Fred admitted. Hermione didn’t like it, but she understood his point. He felt that shielding her parents would do nothing, accomplish nothing, to save them. Knowledge was power. But to give them too much knowledge, countered Hermione, was to overwhelm them with things they could not possibly understand. 

Mum continued voicing her logic, “And if he had that power, the power you do, he would be—”

“Unstoppable.” George finished, putting none too fine a point on the whole thing. 

“We would stop at nothing to keep you and Daddy safe.” Hermione assured her mother with the full conviction of truth, “Nothing.” 

“Let’s keep Dad and me as a topic for another time.” Mum brushed Hermione’s assurances aside.  “Right now I need to understand.” 

But by the time they were ready to leave Hogwarts the next day, it seemed there was little else they could do to help Mum understand. Hermione herself did not understand. How could she make her mother understand that which she did not? 

* * *

Hermione showed the letter to George, who passed it to Fred, who took care to burn it. It read: _Cpholc Esqhw lw ghcg er Zsoghpsvxw kcqg. Evlgjh. -Ecvg._

Amelia Bones is dead by Voldemort’s hand. Bridge. -Bard

By now, they could translate these messages with ease. The Bard, of course, was Percy. After coming to the conclusion that Dumbledore would do nothing to involve them, they had involved Percy. He was well aware of what he was doing, and had made the choice for himself. If Dumbledore could have a pet Death Eater, they could enlist their brother to help them when he saw fit. 

The ashes fell onto the table. Amelia Bones was the Head of the DMLE. She was Susan’s only surviving family member. Their friend Susan was an orphan. Again. Hermione pushed away feelings of sick. 

Her father glanced at them as he turned around from scrambling eggs, “Any news?” 

They were waiting on a missive from Dumbledore. They’d written and begged for a meeting. Hermione had little hope he would take them seriously. The Demeanors were clearly, clearly, breeding and striking terror throughout the UK, and Hermione had tried to address the situation, but no response had been forthcoming. Through the grapevine, they’d heard that Dumbledore was angry at them for putting Harry in danger. 

 Hermione forced out the words, “Not from Dumbledore.” Hermione did not know what they were going to tell her parents. The DMLE was in charge of aurors, and also the entire investigative arm of their justice system. 

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Amelia Bones had been killed because she had come close to the actual perpetrators of the Millennium Bridge murders and the Brockdale Bridge disaster. The muggle papers were going on about “rusted rigging” and the like, but it had been the work of Death Eaters. _After all, the bridge was fewer than ten years old, and the best experts were at a loss to explain why it had snapped cleanly in two, sending a dozen cars into the watery depths of the river below_. No doubt Amelia knew enough to bring one or two to actual charges. 

And for this, she had died, just as a dozen muggle people had died in London last week. Dad dished up eggs onto plates, and set them in front of them. The air was heavy with the implications, with the weight, of this loss. Susan’s aunt had swayed things for Remus at Hogwarts in third year, and had been an advocate of safety in fourth year. She had taken Susan in, and brought her up as her own, with a home full of love and safety and light. Hermione did the only thing she knew how to do. 

She took her wand, and laid solemnly over the ashes of the paper. In tandem, two more wands joined her own, the wood thunking with finality on the table. To symbolically cut themselves off of their magic in this moment was to acknowledge the loss, not of a magical life, but a life. A human life. It seemed that most of the wizarding community had forgotten the meaning behind this custom. 

Hermione could not look at her eggs. Instead, she paused. This was the first life lost since the open declaration of war. This was the first death of a person they knew in this war. There could be no moving past Amelia’s death. There could be no shrugging it off. 

Hermione’s ears rang. It made sense when she understood that Fred was speaking, “Amelia Bones was murdered by Voldemort last night.” 

Hermione saw that her father’s face was awash in shock and in rising sympathy. “She was Molly’s friend, and a real champion of justice.”

“She liked marmite.” George offered, “And she brought Susie over to play with Ron and Gin pretty often.” 

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” Dad murmured. 

 “Thank you.” Fred replied, “But you should be more sorry for our society. He’s gaining power.”

Dad went to speak. He thought better of it, because he closed his mouth and reached for her hand. Hermione let him take it, and she felt his heartbeat, felt the blood moving at her father’s wrist. He was as human as they were, magical or not, and Hermione wondered, not for the first time, why his humanity was to be reviled while a wizard’s was to be celebrated, and mourned. 

* * *

 The day passed slowly, achingly.

They could not share this news. It would be released in due time, but Hermione felt guilty, and felt guilt and pain roll off of her boys in waves. She had to sit on her hands, all the while knowing that Arthur would bring home to his wife that her friend was dead. She had to bite her lip when she wanted to act, to avenge Amelia. 

She wanted to keep Fred and George close. She did not want to lose them to this pain. They, none of them, could bear this alone. They needed each other. And so, when they wanted to talk about their childhoods, she listened, and when she needed to assure herself that they were there, that she’d not died by Dolohov’s hand, they were silent. Eventually, they wanted to go putter around in the lab upstairs. 

Instead of engaging in product development, she ran a few kilometers. Her mind was tired, was spinning too fast, and she needed to focus on her body for a little while. She just needed to turn off the thoughts she could not rationalize away. She hoped to drown them out with burning lungs and aching muscles. 

The neighbors were well used to seeing Hermione Granger in her trainers pounding the pavement at all hours, in all weather, and so it wasn’t odd to see her moving through the odd chill and the heavy mist that seemed to hug the land like a thick shroud. For some, it surely must have meant the start of summer. Hermione had a charmed pocket radio and she was able to transfigure a pair of earbuds for use. She listened to wizarding music as she ran through a mundane neighborhood, trying in vain to outrun her thoughts and her guilt. 

When she got home, her mother insisted they leave the boys to their round of golf and go to the shop. Hermione did not want to go shopping. She wanted to take a hot shower and cry and collapse into her bed. She was so angry that there weren’t words for how she was feeling. She was so angry at Albus Dumbledore that she was five seconds from sending a howler. 

Even so, one did not disobey her mother, not after her mother had cried over the huge gaping wound in her chest that magic had taken days to heal. She cleaned up and shrugged on some denims and a crinkle blouse that covered the still pink and regenerating skin. 

When they left the house, Hermione had the distinct feeling they were being watched. Despite her caution, she put it down to Mrs. Mackle across the road. In her heart, in her mind, though, she knew better. 

When they stopped to get petrol, there was a man leaning against the building, reading a paper. When Hermione went inside to pay, he looked her up and down and smirked when he turned back to the paper he wasn’t really reading. He chuckled when she came outside as he looked with interest at the headlines proclaiming a national tragedy with the failure of two bridges in London. 

Hermione did not let her face betray her emotions. The voices in her head were concerned, but Hermione did not wish to worry her boys any more than they were already on edge. She did not even let herself think about what she was seeing. He had to have been outside her house. She observed, but did not let her observations become thoughts. In this way, Remus’ banging on about meditation made sense. She was able to process things without internalizing them. 

When Mum and Hermione stopped at the post office, the same man was in the next queue. Hermione kept her mother close, watched the exits, and kept her wand in her sleeve. He was watching her, and after a second stop was clearly stalking her. When they came out of the post offie, he was there, obviously pretending to wait for a bus. 

 In the car park of the shop, the hairs on the back of her neck rose. He was there. Hermione could see him entering into the shop between the barriers, a faint look of disgust upon his face. Clearly, this was a punishment for the ham-fisted way the Death Eaters had handled the skirmish not weeks ago at the Ministry. 

“Just fine.” Hermione murmured, unaware that she had replied to her boys aloud until her mother spoke herself. 

“Such a small area to park for the amount of customers, but we got a good place.” Mum agreed, as though Hermione had been talking to her, and not replying to her bondmates, who were across the city playing golf with her father.

Hermione did her best to be vigilant, all the while looking like she was shopping with her Mum. Mum loved to do the shopping, and marveled over the sale prices. It was the little things that made her Mum happy, and despite the mourning and stress going on in her life, Hermione felt herself rising to the challenge as they moved through the spartan but clean aisles. 

No one was going to her mother’s joy for life from her, certainly not a Death Eater heading their way. 

They were looking over the various biscuits when a person bumped into the trolley, with all the artful grace of one of the Chaplin brothers. Hermione had been waiting for Nott Sr. to approach. 

Mum was speaking, “Oh, I beg—”

Hermione saw the rage and disgust flare on his face before he hid it. A muggle was talking to him and he was forced to talk to a mudblood. Hermione assured her boys that all was well. She felt them wanting to come to her, but they needed to let this play out before they acted. 

Theodore Nott, Sr. placed a simple notice-me-not on her mother. Smiling at Hermione with unguarded emotion, Mum moved off to look for some biscuits her father liked. “Daddy could use a treat. Come and find me when you’ve picked up some Sunbites.” 

Hermione stared at the Death Eater in muggle clothing. Last time she had seen him, she’d been watching as a hex had sliced into him. He looked quite hale for someone who had been able to carry his guts around with him. “What are you doing here, Mr. Nott?”

“I am,” He smirked in that same reedy way that his son did, and looked down at the bag in his hand, “buying crips.” 

Hermione’s blood ran cold. The muggles in the shop were bustling around them as though there was nothing going on here, and of course, to them, there wasn’t. The wizard and the witch by the wall of crisps weren’t noticeable. That suited Hermione just fine. 

Nott smiled, “And how fortuitous that I bumped into you. I have an offer, made to you as—”

Hermione did not need to feel Fred’s revulsion and George’s calm rage in order to refuse. It wasn’t a choice for any of them. This, this, Hermione mused, was their join or die moment? Hermione found a certain dark humor in it. Their join or die moment was taking place in a shop, with the heavy scent of cardboard in the air. 

Still, despite the stark contrast of what this moment meant and where it was taking place, Hermione was deadly serious. “You may tell your master, that unless his offer is to present himself to the ICW for capture, I refuse. You may further tell him that should I see any of his lackeys here again, I will not hesitate to use lethal force against them.”

“Tsk, tsk, and in a muggle area too.” Nott’s voice was silky, but Hermione heard the barely restrained rage beneath it. He was clearly, clearly, not happy to be here. Who could blame him? It wasn’t as though she would want to bring news of her defiant refusal back to Voldemort. No doubt there was a bout of torture waiting upon affirmation of his certain failure, “How many years in Azkaban does that add to the sentence?” He dropped his voice, “Decide.” 

“My choice is made.” Hermione informed him, “Tell Tom I’m waiting, will you?” 

The use of Tom’s name rattled Nott, who had likely spent much of the week on his knees before his master, “How dare—”

“I dare yet more.” Hermione insisted, knowing that fire blazed in her eyes, “Release my mother.”

Nott smirked, “It would be such a shame to see your mother’s mud back in the dirt where it belongs because you didn’t carefully decide to be a good little mudblood.” 

Hermione waved her hand, and the spell was released. She saw something shift in Nott’s eyes. Her reply needed no further words. She had given him a choice to rise above, and he had not done so. She collected her mother with a soft smile, and they continued shopping. 

Her mother was confused at Hermione’s dogged smile, but waited until they were back in the car. “What’s wrong, Bunny?”

“Mum…” Hermione looked out the sideview window. Nott was there, casting cleansing charms upon himself in the car park, in full view of muggle shoppers. “Why don’t we take the long way round and pick up something to take home?”

“I’m proud of you, Hermione.” Mum patted her hand gently, “Please don’t forget that.”

A common side-effect of a notice me not was for mundane people was that they felt the need to tell people around them how they felt. Hermione knew it was a side-effect of the spell. Still, she took comfort in it, even knowing that her mother would not be proud to have a daughter who had just threatened to kill a man and had likely consigned others to their deaths.  

* * *

 

Later that night, Hermione was rifling through her dresser drawers. She set aside various items and lifted a pile of shirts, only to sigh. She couldn’t find it, and she needed these things. The fakes she kept in her bug out bag weren’t the point. She needed her documents. She needed them not only for herself but to assure anyone that ransacked the house that she had gone. After all, who would think she yet lived here if her vital documents were gone? 

“Just summon it.” George suggested, from where he was flopped on her bed, tossing and catching a ball, his tone as soothing as the emotions he was pushing down the bond, “You don’t have to tell them why you want it.”

“I’ve already lied five times today.” Hermione returned, guilt welling, “That’s just about my limit.”

Fred appeared in the chair by her desk with a loud crack. Her passport, her muggle passport, was open between his fingers, “Quite a well traveled young lady, I should say.” 

Hermione snatched it away and stuffed it in her bag, “Yes, well. Let’s hope we don’t need it.” 

Fred produced another two documents. “I duplicated them and left the0m in the safe. These are the originals.” 

His teasing had fallen away as he passed her her other documents. These, Hermione glanced upon and found them to be in order before putting them in her backpack. She looked around her room. There was nothing else it would be a disaster to not have, though she would miss her things. She would miss them as she now missed the feeling of safety this house, this room, had always given her.

However, they could not be seen to remove anything, nor could she further worry her parents. She had told them she would stop at nothing to keep them safe, and she meant it with every fiber of her being. She tried not to be sad. 

This had to happen sometime. Hermione pushed away thoughts of what could have, what should have, been. She had to suck it up and roll with the punches, come what may. At least this way she was keeping her promises. This way, she was being proactive in the only way she knew how to be. There was a time for valor and a time to play the game. Their choice was clear, given what was at stake. 

She looked around her room, knowing deep in her soul that they were unsafe here. Their presence further made her parents unsafe. They’d set more wards and found every evidence of foreign magical signatures. Death Eaters. Not one Order Member had thought to check up on her Mum and Dad, and Hermione was going to have words with Dumbledore, who had finally deigned to write after days, about that oversight. 

Hermione zipped the bag, and swallowed her tears. She sat there on the floor of her childhood bedroom for a ageless moment. She did not know how long she sat there, looking at everything and at nothing, taking it into her memory, but never pausing to really focus. To do so would have killed her resolve. 

She sat there until she realized that her boys were holding her gently, in the middle of the rug. She sat there until she realized that the light in the sky was fading. She sat there until she realized that tomorrow was a new day. She sat there until she realized that tomorrow, she would wake up and fight a war and she would know that she had done everything she could to help keep those she loved safe.

 But mostly, mostly she sat there on the floor until her father popped his head in the room, and joked, “You know we have furniture upon which to sit, correct? Rooms full of them! There’s even a room meant entirely for sitting and for beating your Mum at Scrabble.” 

And so, they went and played Scrabble in the lounge.

Though she could easily earn the triple word score on a twenty point word, and could utterly decimate her opponents, she could not figure out a way to tell her parents that they were being watched. She could not tell them that any deviation of their routines would mean their deaths. She could not tell them that in hurting them, she was doing her best to show them how much she loved them.

She was leaving them, leaving, when all she really wanted was to stay. 

Hermione knew that she would be back here, that she would sleep her sometimes. She also knew, however, that after tonight that the comfortable home in which she had grown up would never be her home in quite the same way. In making this choice, she was breaking ties she had not yet planned to sever, taking steps she needed to take, though did not relish. She knew that no matter how she had left her parent’s nest it would have been hard, but doing it in this way robbed the moment of any potential joy. 

She let her parents think she would be back soon, though she knew that largely depended on what Dumbledore said, and hugged them each tightly in an uncharacteristic display of affection. She hated to think that she would not hug her mother for a long time, but at least in doing this, she was doing all she could to ensure that she would hug her mother again. Even so, she knew that there would be no hugs once they talked. 

* * *

The Burrow was a somber place.

Molly mourned deeply, and the old wounds of other losses weighed heavily upon her. Arthur alluded to the fact that the Ministry was in shambles. He and Molly went out, clearly to a Meeting, and neither she nor her boys were invited. Hermione spent the evening with Ginny, holding her as she cried and declared that Susan should come and live with them. 

Hermione did not tell her what she knew. The fate of their entire community balanced on spider’s silk. And yet, their hearts were with a teenaged girl who had lost everyone at the hand of a monster. Hermione tried to help, when all she was feeling guilt. 

Fred wrapped his arms around her as she stood at the sink, trying to do up the dishes before Molly got back. “If you had killed him when we had the chance, he’d just be harder to kill. We’ve got to get his soul fragments before his carcass, or it’s useless.” 

“We don’t even know how many or where they are or anything.” Hermione shoved her sponge into the pot, scrubbing, “And here we are, watching people die. Watching people we—” She threw the sponge into the sink with some force, letting the sudsy water splash her on the face. 

Hermione let Fred reach around her to shut off the water. She turned around in his arms, and cried. She hated herself because all she could go back to was this horrible, selfish, fear that her Mum and Dad would be next. She was at the helm of a war, and all she could think about was her Mum and Dad, and how badly her boys were grieved by Amelia’s loss. 

“I know, Hermione.” He smoothed back her wild, unruly hair and let her cry herself out. There was a war to fight tomorrow, but tonight, all she could do was cry, and mourn. 

* * *

The next day, Hermione made sure the coffee was on, and the kettle was on the boil. She tried to help Molly a bit in the garden. She tended the chickens and scrubbed out the feeders with muggle elbow grease. Molly put wash on the line and Hermione tended vegetables and kept Crooksy away from the gnomes. 

 A bit after ten, she went inside and dressed, rinsing away the dirt and the gunk and the feeling of chicken feathers on her skin. She had a wardrobe in Ginny’s room, and so she felt reasonably certain that Dumbledore would not find her outfit as objectionable as he would find her words. 

She found him in the office he had commandeered at Grimmauld, looking every bit the master of the house as he ordered for tea Hermione knew she would not touch. It made her sick to see that every single owl she or Fred or George had sent to Remus was sitting on a pile by the window.

Dumbledore noted her gaze, and informed her that the protective wards on the house in France prevented mail, and that he was collecting any mail for Remus’s return. Hermione just bet that he was reading it, too, and was glad to confirm with both George and Fred that they had put nothing in writing that was of concern. 

Their conversation was far worse than Hermione had anticipated. After a long fifteen minutes, she felt as though she had been deeply betrayed, and was unable to see the whole thing in any other way. She understood that Dumbledore saw the world in a very black and white way, and that she would never understand his worldview. 

His reaction, even so, was a bit beyond the pale in Hermione’s mind. She repeated herself, “All I am asking for is information. I just need to protect my parents.” 

All she wanted was information. She regretted not being able to do anything for all the people who had died in London, but she hadn’t had the data needed to step in, somehow, because he had not shared anything with her. “Miss Granger, I assure you, the wards…”

“Do nothing to protect my parents from having Death Eaters in their garden.” Hermione reminded him of the proof they had, the magical signatures left behind, “All I ask is that, while Harry is in France and the Order is not tasked with keeping him safe, my parents have an Order member assigned to them from six in the evening to six in the morning.” 

“We must conserve resources.” Dumbledore replied, shuffling papers as though the resources he were discussing were somehow more valuable than her parents lives, “I am indeed sorry.”

“I’ve told you Nott threatened Mum.” Hermione insisted, “And I’ve told you they weren’t idle words.”

“Where do we draw the line, Hermione?” Dumbledore asked, his eyes twinkling, “If we help your parents, then I would have to protect all Muggleborn students in the same fashion.”

Hermione flushed, and went very cold. Her blood felt like ice, “After all I have done?” Hermione watched his expression change, and drew a breath into tight lungs, “If not for me, then surely for Fred and for George. Please.”

“Hermione.” Dumbledore chided her. He was embarrassed for her, not by his own actions. 

“They’re my parents! They’re not mud!” Hermione cried, forcing herself to sober because she knew any hint of emotion would lead him to labeling her an irrational girl, “They’re my parents and I’m putting my life on the line and all I am asking, all I am begging you for, is some help in keeping them out of the firing line.”

“Do compose yourself.” Dumbledore demanded, as though Snape had not sat before him in just the same way, begging for Lily Potter’s life. She knew the stakes. She was not above it. Still, the realization that he did not value her work as much as he valued Snape’s was a bitter pill to swallow. 

Hermione voiced her suspicions. It was not an easy thing to consider, but it was very clear that Dumbledore had made a distinction here that Hermione could not herself make. “If I were asking for the same for Arthur and Molly, would you consider it?”

“The Order must prioritize.” Dumbledore’s words were dispassionate, almost grandfatherly, and in them Hermione heard everything she would ever need to know. Dumbledore was not fighting for change. He was not fighting for a balancing the universe. He was fighting a foe. Harry, as his weapon of choice, was secreted off to France in the dead of night on a muggle plane. She, as a muggleborn member of a triad he hadn’t wanted but was also unafraid to use, was not afforded the same protections. 

Hermione returned in the same tone, looking dead in his eyes, willing him to see her thoughts, see the thoughts her boys were thinking. She could not occlude because of the bond, and she made sure to project what they all three were thinking. “And so must I.” 

Dumbledore had heard her carefully phrased thoughts, and it seemed that he was angry. “Miss Granger, I beg you understand that in terms of the Greater Good of this war—”

Hermione cut him off. Her parents were not pawns to be sacrificed to the Greater Good, were not dead weight to be chopped away so that Hermione and Fred and George could become even more focused on Dumbledore’s goals. “Finish that sentence, Dumbledore, and you will lose the only people standing between you and failure.” Hermione gripped her bag, “We’re done here.” 

“Oh, wonderful.” He seemed giddy, as though she was talking about the meeting, and not anything larger, “I’ve a meeting with the Ministry this afternoon.”

“I wish you luck.” Hermione stood. Her mother, her muggle mother who wasn’t so much as worth as a single bit of help to Dumbledore, had raised her with values and morals. 

Dumbledore had already returned to his papers. “It’s yet another trifling matter.” 

Hermione tossed the powder into the Floo. Yet another trifling matter. Just like the very lives of her parents. 

She arrived at the flat at 93, and helped get ready for the Grand Opening. George had already sent a note to Percy. They none of them were going to take what had just happened sitting down. When she was stacking up boxes of joke ink pots, George set down the box he’d carried out for her. 

“You’ve promised them they’ll be safe.” George began, searching out her gaze, “But now I’m promising you that they’ll be safe. If it means prioritizing that above all else, that’s what it means.”

“Maybe he’s—” Hermione could not say it, but she set the ink pot box down with shaking hands. Maybe Dumbledore was right. 

“He’s wrong.” George insisted, “There is no Greater Good, Hermione. It’s the paltry saying of a man who won’t own up to his choices. At least we know there are some people, some ideals, we will never sacrifice.” 

Hermione did not reply verbally. She inclined her head. She was saved from having to reply when Fred welcomed an owl. The emotions swirling inside of him were enough to send both George and Hermione rushing to the office. 

They clattered into the room, where Fred was ashen and enraged. “Fudge stepped aside. We’ve got Rufus Scrimgeour.” 

That trifling matter Dumbledore had mentioned, Hermione realized, in tandem with her boys, was nothing other than Fudge’s sacking. And although Rufus Scrimgeour had principles as Head Auror, he was a puppet in the sense that it was, according to Percy’s note, very clearly, a clandestine appointment by Voldemort under the threat of yet more violence.

She could only hope, she thought bitterly, that it was for the greater good. 

* * *

Hermione felt the shift in the magical energies around her as she roused from an uneasy sleep until they built to a pressure that she could not pass over in a dazed state. She sat bolt upright in the middle of their bed at the Burrow, knowing that the warmth and chill she felt had little to do with the fan _tick-tick-whirring_ at the foot of the bed. Hermione was out of bed before the fan had finished its rotation. 

“There’s someone here.” Hermione insisted, glad that she had slept in soft cotton shorts and a shirt, that while not including a bra, was suitable enough to leave the room while wearing. This was war, and the time for relaxing in unseeable sleeping attire had passed. This was the very reason they needed to be ready and able to move at any second. 

Fred took the back garden, George the front, and Hermione the workshops after sweeping the house. There had been someone moving along the south boundary. She was halfway to the shed that was the size of a large barn on the inside, when, in the distance, she saw the flare of magical energy in the earth’s atmosphere. 

As soon as she had seen it, Hermione knew that there was no one on the Burrow property. The wards had held, and the person along the south boundary had been a mere tease, mere titillation. The flare of magic a few kilometers off was a warning they were meant to see. They raced back inside, knowing that it could be a trap that anyone could be, even now, trying to get onto Weasley property. 

It was a calculated risk. 

They dressed quickly, jeans and trainers and long-sleeved dark cotton tops. Hermione stayed back and woke Arthur and Molly while Fred and George scouted on ahead. They were worried and startled at having been woken, and Hermione was careful to remind them not to turn on many lamps, knowing that anyone or anything could happen. 

Hermione felt the magical energy emanating from that place Fred and George were seeking pull and crackle. It was weak, being that it was so far away, but she was more and more attuned to magical energy in the world around her, knowing that it was a tool provided to her by her bond that she could not afford to discredit. Her ability to tap into magical energies around her would have ebbed and flowed in strength if she allowed herself to menstruate, but as it stood it was a general hum. 

Hermione gripped the table as she looked out in her mind’s eye at what her boys were seeing. She knew Molly knew what she was seeing, for she placed a chair behind Hermione and urged her back into it. Her body was here, but her focus was elsewhere and Molly was preventing a fall. 

What she saw in her mind’s eye through her boys was totally and unmistakably clear. Giants were terrorizing muggle villages. They had, in the span of a single night, laid waste to half of the coastal villages in Somerset, as they came up from Devon. The destruction, even as George and Fred were high in the air, was clearly and shockingly apparent. 

Hermione shoved magic at her boys, and participated at a distance as they set wards. They wouldn’t do much up in the air, but it was something from which to start off and they would settle to the ground by the time they returned as a unit. The magic she pushed towards them sizzled as it left her body, needing energy to traverse the physical space between them. In minutes, some giant repelling wards were set. 

George touched down near to where several giants were pulling up trees and wrecking houses and began firing wandless spells to keep the giants back as they made a plan. Fred popped home to fetch her, and, with the blink of an eye, they landed behind a bunch of bins outside a Chinese takeaway place.

Communicating non-verbally, they agreed upon an action plan. They were going to lead the giants away, force them out, using untraceable magic, meaning no wands. It was critical no one know they were here.

They set off, running at full speed toward the current epicenter of the damage, firing spells as they went to avoid falling detritus, like lorries and huge chunks of roofs. Hermione knew that she would soon be walking on air and dodging blows thirty feet above the ground, and as they moved, she prepared herself for it. The dark night was heavy with the roar of the giants, and the pounding of their hearts. 

They had only just turned the corner to begin facing the giants when George grabbed her arm, hauling her back around the corner. People on brooms were touching down. Fred peeked and Hermione saw through his eyes that the village proper was soon going to be crawling with the assembling aurors and other ministry employees designed for these sort of problems.

Knowing they could not be seen, they disillusioned themselves and moved toward the throng, hopeful for information that would aid them as they continued to advance through the crowd towards the giants they were determined to fight off. Though they moved quickly, they heard enough to know that the giants had been sent by Voldemort, and that their path showed they were heading down to Devon, where a boat had been found waiting for them in Sidmouth. Sidmouth, the aurors asserted, made no sense because there was no port there, no privacy from the bay, no shelter.

Fred’s grim thoughts enlightened Hermione. _Sidmouth is minutes from Ottery St. Catchpole._

 _Straight shot. Good for a quick escape._ George agreed, the tone of his voice, even in their heads, tight and grim.   

Hermione forced herself to keep moving through the gathering personnel as she realized that Voldemort had sent the giants to flush them out. The aurors had begun to set up large shielding spells, so at least she no longer had to worry about dodging uprooted gravestones. 

  She knew he could not breach the Burrow’s defenses, but he could try, and he could terrorize their entire family in doing so. Voldemort was trying to show them that they were unsafe. He must be desperate for their power. Then again, Hermione thought as she blasted a giant from 30 feet away and sent him crashing into the street, who wouldn’t be?  

They were almost through the crowd and on toward their goal, when they heard someone call out, “Who set the wards? Remember, a ministry signature spell is required after each spell use for tracking and review!” 

People murmured and looked around for the person responsible. They weren’t even fighting the giants who were now tearing apart a cemetery. Hermione watched as a desecrated body flew around a giant and whacked him repeatedly in the face. The man’s casket crashed down over the giant’s head. It was gruesome and horrible, but it was indeed good windless and wordless spellwork. Hermione could not fault her boys for using what, and who, was at hand to fight. 

Hermione knew what they had to do. She sent up an invisible flare of magic to call the giants their way, knowing that the aurors needed to, and would, act accordingly. As the giants approached, grunting and wailing, they raced around back of them and did their best to stun, to weaken, to warn.

They used branches, they stood behind aurors and duplicated their spells at an enhanced level. Sometimes they countered useless spells to get the giant in question to move into a better position. In a sense, they were relegated to being invisible helping hands. 

It wasn’t enough. They were only getting started when they were being noticed, though they were still unseen. Another voice in the midst of the fight turned to thank them, only to see open air. Tonks was a good sport, but she was in the midst of battle. She cried, “Wesson, if you’re trying to get a promotion, now is not the time to do it.” 

Another spell sent in triplicate hit the giant and he fell to his knees with a horrible thud that was nothing short of an earthquake that shook the ground violently, leading Tonks to nearly fall onto George, who dove away from her as fast as possible.

 With that, they apparated away. When they were cracking away, and Tonks heard the sound over the tumbling giant, she called, “Wesson, I never knew you to be so modest.” 

They arrived back in the Burrow’s garden, sweaty, bleeding, and worn. The black of the night sky was fading into blue, and she knew that the Ministry would soon be obliviating the entire town and planting stories so as to control the damage. It was literally a giant mess. Somerset’s coast was in shambles.  

The first thing they  did upon their return was to use the blood that was trickling from each of them to strengthen the wards. A splatter of blood spilled in battle to defend one’s family on the stones did a bit of good. Not much, but some. 

As they trudged inside, and tried to comfort Arthur and Molly, they felt a crushing sense of loss. 

This night, they agreed, made it clear that they could not make the Burrow their home any longer. Maybe it was letting Voldemort win in some respect, but they could not let giants come to their door. It would only escalate, and they needed to cut Voldemort off at the knees. 

They knew anything they said would get back to the Order, so they neglected to tell their parents that they had been involved in any other way than to see the Ministry was there. It clearly didn’t fly, but least they gave them the gift of plausible deniability. 

Arthur looked so uncertain. He tried to speak, but could not elaborate with facts. Instead, he expressed a feeling, expressed a notion no spell could prevent. “Hagrid would be disappointed.” 

That was all they needed to know that there had been chatter at the last Order meeting about Giants. And yet, according to Dumbledore, they weren’t worth alerting or even writing to promptly in order to schedule a meeting. Hermione had no way of knowing how many people had died, but she knew they could have prevented it, somehow, at least to some degree.  

* * *

And so, they did the only thing they could do in the aftermath of tragedy.

They joined the muggle clean up efforts, and snuck bits of magic in to repair things for people making the cost more affordable, or found a clean laundry basket untouched by the damage with just enough clothing to get them by. If they put protections and alert wards in place, well, it didn’t hurt anyone. 

 Very determinedly, they reported to the Red Cross office set up in one town at the center of the damage, and participated in the only way they could, because naturally the Ministry wasn’t doing anything to help muggles. _The Prophet_ was whinging on about how much it was costing to obliviate the muggle populations and relocate the giants that had not escaped. All but two of the two dozen Fred and George had spotted had evaded capture. 

Hermione, returning to a small cottage because George had found the missing cat, found Fred patting the old lady’s hand in her still-standing kitchen. They were meant to be cleaning her garden, but what she had needed most was listening ears and comforting. She was a pensioner on her own. 

“Mrs. Tate, we’re very certain there won’t be another hurricane.” Fred promised. “And isn’t it wonderful? George found Tibbles!” 

The elderly lady looked confused. It was only then that Hermione saw that George had not yet entered the small cottage. He was still coming up the walk. When he came inside, the old lady gave a cry that mingled with a sob, and reached for a harried looking grey cat that George was soothing in his arms. The animal was angular and haughty, not at all the sort of cat Mrs. Tate had described. 

Hermione only wished that solving this was as easy as finding one cat with a point-me. They spent the day trying to do little things, often learning more from being boots on the ground than they might have from the papers. The Muggle papers passed them off as freak storms. Magical ones were vague, and said nothing of giants nor of the five dead muggle people, nor of the way Giants had entered the country as boldly as anything.

The destruction was massive. Hermione, everywhere she looked, grew more furious. Later, they walked along the coastline and set as many wards as possible. Let Voldemort know they had come, let him see and know that they were now cowed. With birds shrieking overhead, they verbalized their plans for the first time. 

“If we’re in London, we can open the store, and carry on as though we’re totally unwary.” Hermione agreed, “And we’re not buried in the countryside.”’

They were walking along the stoney coast, hand in hand in hand. The wind whipped Hermione’s hair gently as she walked between George and Fred, the beach totally free of anyone else. Everyone who didn’t live here was too scared to come here, and everyone who did was too busy working and trying to rebuild their lives to come down the beach. 

“How do we present this?” George asked, mentally articulating that if they didn’t tell some measure of the truth, both their parents and hers would balk at the idea of them shaking up. Arthur and Molly were totally against the idea because they felt them too young and felt that it sent too loud a message. Her parents, for their part, agreed about their ages, and also felt that while Hermione was in school that she had to live with them. 

But to tell the whole truth would be equally as problematic. Her parents would never agree with the idea that they were being protected, and the Weasleys would feel that they were intentionally making themselves more vulnerable. To be totally honest about what was going on would be to articulate that they were trying to, instead of being reactionary, beat Tom Riddle at this with changed rules. 

“I just think we ought to tell them separately.” Fred asserted, suggesting that they tell their parents only enough. To gauge that, he asserted mentally, would only be possible in the moment. Better, he thought, to figure out how to tell them and not what to tell them. 

* * *

“Absolutely not!” Molly cried, as soon as the twins finished speaking and their plans to move into the flat over the shop were articulated. 

“Mum.” Fred tried again, because George’s jaw was clenched tight. “There isn’t anything else to do.”

“If we don’t go, you and Dad and Ginny and Ron will die.” George was of the opinion that their parents needed to understand the gravity of the situation, “You will die, and there would be little we might do to prevent it.” 

Hermione wondered where their plan to talk about being there to see to the shop, now that their grand opening was mere days away had gone. Clearly, Fred replied internally, it had flown out the window. George made no apologies. Hermione thought it a bit frank, but understood the stakes. 

The giants were looking for them, and if the giants were warnings, they did not know what would come next. They were not God, and there were some people they could not risk. They had to keep two steps ahead. Hermione tried to soften the blow she knew this was to Molly and to Arthur, “We cannot let entire West Country be destroyed. In London, they’re protected, and you’re protected.” She knew this to be true. The crowded spaces of Diagon and of Wizarding London afforded them some measure of protection, “Even Voldemort would not yet destroy Diagon.” 

“You’re children.” Molly insisted, though her tears. “You’re just children.” 

“We knew what we were risking when we joined up.” Arthur replied, and Hermione was struck, not for the first time, at just how strong and how resolute Arthur and Molly were. She knew they believed in this fight, not for the greater good, but for the right reasons, for justice and for a better world. They fought for their beliefs where others merely paid the idea lip service, and yet others, even those in their movement, discredited them. “We’re not afraid.” 

Legally, they weren’t children, but she understood. They were too young to be taking on the brunt of this conflict, and yet it fell to them. “There is a point between being fearless and being complacent and foolhardy. We can’t afford that luxury.” 

“We’ll open the shop, be as visible as possible.”  George continued on sticking to the plan now that he had diverted from it. In doing so, they would be sending a clear message to the people in their community who were clearly terrified and were in need of solace that wasn’t going to come for the Ministry or from Dumbledore. 

Hermione did not say this, but in London they would be near the Ministry and at the center of their community. They did not know what would come, but they knew that the time for hiding had passed. They needed to stay low-key, but also in control, and the best way to do that was to blend in. 

“Hermione…” Arthur began, “will not be living with the boys, Molly. There truly isn’t much we can do to keep the two of them here.” 

Hermione did not regret telling that lie. She would atone for it later, when there was time to consider anything but the safety of her parents. 

“First Percy, and now F-f-Fred and Ge-George.” Molly’s tears clogged her voice, “And soon soon it will be Ron and the girls go-going…” Her anguish was palpable, “I am losing my-my-my children to this war.”

“No.” Hermione insisted, looking around the warm kitchen and then back at Molly. She knew Ginny and Ron were listening at the door, and she wanted them to hear her say this, “We’re still going to be here, for always, Molly. This is mere pretense, to keep us together. The Burrow is home. It will always be home. But right now we need to keep our home safe.” 

And it was with heavy hearts that the Weasleys consented.

* * *

Hermione knew this was a risk, but it was a risk she had to take. She wasn’t above doing what she had to do to keep the world safe. This wasn’t about magical or muggle, mundane or not. This was about survival. This was about humanity. 

Dumbledore had cut her off, when she could have prevented human deaths. She could have prevented those deaths on that bridge. She could have forestalled Amelia’s death. Dumbledore had let those people die when she had proof he’d known of Voldemort’s machinations to force Fudge’s hand, to say nothing of the muggle people who had died in Somerset. 

And so, Hermione was doing something drastic for the cause of war. She spread her implements over a corner of the crowded table in the stock room, and got to work. The iron heated quickly with a charm, and Hermione sectioned off her curls into small chunks with sticking spells. She felt so proud of herself that she had grabbed this tool, a gift from her relatives, that she had not once heretofore used. 

She couldn't use polyjuice, as her stores were precious, and this wasn't a life or death situation. She just needed to ne careful. 

She had seen Parvati do this on her sleek dark hair, so Hermione knew she understood the theory. She dipped a comb into heat protectant that she’d bought this morning on a trip for some loo roll, and worked it through her curls in the first section, uncaring of frizz. She repeated the coating process with her hands with yet more product she’d borrowed from Ginny. 

Her hair sizzled as she clipped the large barrel around her hair, and pulled it down the length of her tresses. It took five passes with the iron following a fine toothed comb on a single section, but eventually her curls were gone, and she was left with straight hair. It was wavy to a degree, and heavy, a mane of hair that, while glossy, fell down to the back of her waist just above her hips. 

She had only burned herself twice by the time she worked halfway around her head. It was not easy work. For every section she completed, she had to add it to what was done, and straighten the whole lot quickly before moving forward. 

“Isn’t there a spell for that?” Fred asked, from where he had come to stand in the doorway, clearly compelled to investigate by her mental monologue. 

Hermione rolled her eyes, and spoke as she let another clump of curls fall from a sticking charm. “Doesn’t work on my hair.” She began to pull the comb through the newly released hair, “But the potions I got from Ginny are magical.”

“Don’t wash it out when you get home, please.” Fred asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes at his question and the thoughts behind it. George, from wherever he was, was currently thinking about something to do with experimentation. “For the love of Merlin, I’m trying to avoid detection in muggle London, not add footage to your wank banks, thank you.” 

“You’re multitasking.” Fred teased, and then headed off to continue setting up the till. 

Hermione grinned, and continued on with her task. It would not do to visit 10 Downing Street with such ideas in her head. But such was the consequences of having mental connections with two teenage boys who seemed to find something arousing in grocery lists.

George called out, falsely affronted from the front of the vacant shop where he was setting up a window display. His sign was slightly off center, and he fixed it with her mental prompting as he spoke, “We’re young men, you know!” 

“And that was only because—” Fred seemed hell-bent on defending on himself. 

“Yes, thank you!” Hermione called out, “We’re all working now!” 

 They worked for about another two hours, when everything came together for Hermione and there was nothing left to delay her from her course. She did look different, she thought, with this hair, at least according to the mirror. 

“Right then.” Hermione turned around to face the two people in the flat, one of whom was eating muggle cereal and the other of whom seemed to be fiddling with counterfeiting tools. She picked up her shoulder bag and her wand. “I’m off to see the PM. Wish me luck.”

They wanted to go with her, but this was better handled alone. If Kingsley raised the alarm for Dumbledore, she would rather take the heat for this one on her own. Her boys were in a tough enough position, with their parents being very high up in the Order. 

She made her way to 10 Downing Street, knowing full well that magic would have to be used to get an appointment. She wasn’t above confounding a few security people and a few police to get inside. It wasn’t like she harbored him any ill will. She just wanted to help him. God knew the man had enough trouble on his plate and she desperately needed support. 

From Gracechurch Street, the closest muggle street outside Diagon, Hermione made her way to Monument Station, her thick hair restrained by an alice band. Not fifteen minutes, she was exiting Westminster station, carefully watching if she had been followed. No one, it seemed, had done so. Then again, she was using muggle transport, and everyone knew that the Granger girl had wild and unruly hair. The young woman in a day dress with sleek hair and pearl ear bobs was unquestioningly muggle. 

Hermione knew that people couldn’t just pop over to 10 Downing Street and demand a meeting, but she was not most people. She knew she had to do something. It was worth every shot they could take. 

It was far too easy to convince the person at the door that there had been some mix-up, but here she was, and she did hope all was well on their end. Hermione channeled her mother, her muggle mother, who had fought wars and treated kings and street urchins. That alone would have gotten her in the door, but magic helped.

As she was screened by security, the man told her apologetically that the whole office had been in shambles because one of the staff had been _entertaining the public by impersonating a duck._ Hermione smelled an Imperious Curse a mile off, and hoped she wasn’t too late. 

The staff member escorting her to the PMs offices whispered conspiratorially of the new secretary taking his place, _“He’s highly efficient, gets through twice the work the rest of them —”_

The door opened, and Hermione understood why that was true, and not hyperbole. The secretary did get through twice the work because he was a wizard. She laughed inwardly, as terror built in her soul. They had spent weeks avoiding traps, days planning to outsmart those who stood against them with careful planning, and they’d never thought to check if there were any plants at 10 Downing Street. 

The bottom dropped out of her stomach when the fabulously efficient secretary turned out to be Kingsley Shacklebolt. Kingsley Shaklebolt, who with his glasses and his perfect dentition, was staring at her in ill-concealed shock. 

The staff person misinterpreted his reaction, “Mr. Shacklebolt. Not to worry about that scheduling mishap. Miss Granger’s arrived for her appointment.”

“Wonderful.” He smiled winningly at the staff member, who was all efficiency and polite smiles. “And what shall I say this is in regards to, Miss, ah, Granger? The office requires a notation in the official diary, and I’m afraid my predecessor left your appointment utterly devoid of details.” 

Hermione forced herself to accept the calming energies that were thrumming along the bond before she spoke, grabbing at the first idea she could possibly find in her panicking brain, “It’s a school project.”

He picked up a muggle pen, and wrote something down. He then bade her to sit down, “It must be a very interesting school you attend, Miss Granger. Might I offer you some tea?”

“No, thank you.” Hermione replied, meeting his gaze boldly, “It’s very special school.” 

Thankfully, she was saved from interrogation as the first person left with cheery greetings, and the wide door to the office beyond them opened. Hermione stood, stilling her shaking knees as she was introduced, knowing full well that her jitters had nothing to do with meeting the PM. 


	14. Summer 1996

The shadows of dusk that were falling over Downing Street were ominous, filled with pain and tension, like the breeding Demeanors that congregated in the mist during the deep parts of the night. Mist hung heavily around the lights and windowpanes. As Hermione left 10 Downing Street, she was well aware that with every breath she took that the same dreadful mist was filling her lungs. 

Hermione had no other way home, as she did not have the ability to open the Floo. Well, that was a lie. She could have done it easily, but she knew the network out of the PMs office was watched. To go back to the shop in the same way she had come was her only option. She felt safer on the tube than she did on a bus. 

Her mother had always told her never to be in the City alone after dark. Granted, her mother had been warning her as a mother might seek to educate any child, but most often daughters. It was a sad commentary that so much of a girl’s life was built around the idea that she had to prevent assault. Her mother hadn’t been thinking about wizards lurking in the shadows, but Hermione was. How could she not? 

Hermione assured her boys that they just needed to get home, and then they could talk. To risk them coming to get her was unthinkable. She scanned the area, brushing her fingers along a post to look engaged as she scoped things out. 

Hermione began to quickly head south on Whitehall, knowing that something was very wrong. There was almost no one there, and the desertion and isolation seemed to be the work of  a spell or two, judging by the magic in the air, magic that was holding taunt a notice-me-not. Hermione hastened towards its edge. 

Hermione silenced herself, knowing instinctively that she had best tread lightly. In the deathly silence, she heard the unmistakable crack of apparition. Once. Twice. Spying the flash of dark robes, Hermione ducked quickly behind the Cenotaph, well aware they were just on the other side. All they had to do was take five steps and she would be face to face with masked Death Eaters. 

 They were using a muggle war memorial to plot yet more death. That much was certain when she heard Malfoy Sr. light his wand, “To Our Lord and his glory, Mulciber.”

Hermione’s stomach twisted as the bond flared. She was alone. She did not need to reveal herself. This was a chance to get information from the horse’s mouth, directly from the source, she elaborated when the idiom fell flat, and she wasn’t going to pass it up. 

“To His rise.” The other Death Eater replied, as Hermione gripped her wand. “I’ve been wanting to kill the bitch for decades. She’s a blight on the Vance name. How gracious of our Lord to give us this task, in his wisdom and mercy.”

Emmeline. Emmeline Vance. She was Order. She was Order, and she was here. Hermione knew at once that she would not let innocent blood be shed, not with her own cousin Mulciber sending the Killing Curse her way. Hermione had never imagined a cousin turning their wand on a member of their family, no matter how estranged they were. 

Malfoy, a faint tinge of disgust coloring his poshly rounded tones, “Blood traitors meet their rightful ends.” 

Mulciber chuckled. “Now, where did Snape say…”

The bond exploded within her, a riot of emotion and information. It was Snape who had, in his capacity as a double agent, given up his friend and comrade. There was no justice in this, no Greater Good. 

Hermione ran, not toward the station, but back towards 10 Downing Street, desperate to find Emmeline and get them out of here, throwing spells around her to hide herself and warn her of the coming Death Eaters. 

Clearly, Emmeline was here on Dumbledore’s orders. How else, Fred asked in her mind, would Snape know how find her. She could not leave them behind. In her mind, Fred and George were firing off rapid-fire support.

_Breathe._

_Remember, you can’t find a disillusioned person._

_Don’t try to find her._

_You’ve got to look for the disturbances around them._

_I don’t see—_

_The bins!_

Hermione raced forward as she spotted a gap between two bins that was not allowing light to flow between them, jostling hard into her intended target. “Emmeline, you need to side-along me to Diagon, right now.” 

The witch that appeared in front of her was skeptical. “Hermione—”

Hermione heard the footsteps at the same moment Emmeline did, heard that solid lockstep of Death Eaters on the march, and understanding crested over her features. She was a battle-hardened witch, and she knew exactly who were coming their way. They were gone before Hermione could urge her again, landing in a swirl in the street in front of 57 Diagon. 

They ran along the cobbled street in the magical lamplight, Hermione shoving her way through the front door of the shop after pushing Emmeline into it.  When they were safe, her boys warded the place and locked it down before Emmeline could even so much as inhale. When she did, she asked, “What is going on?”

She was bewildered, bewildered by what had happened and where they were now standing. Hermione felt badly for her, knowing that the emotional fallout that was coming would be a tough one to handle. 

George revealed the truth as gently as he could, stepping away from where the shutters were slamming into place. “You were about a minute from dying for the Greater Good.”

Emmeline paled. It was clear from the mental conversation, which of course Emmeline was not privy to, that George was completely and totally done with giving Dumbledore the benefit of the doubt. 

Hermione could understand it. Emmeline was one of the old Order members, loyal and truth through it all, and Dumbledore had handed Snape the information that had signed her death warrant. Even knowing this, he had not so much as asked her to go with a partner, or moved the location, or even given Snape slightly wrong intel. 

Hermione knew, as she did, that they had jumped into a heap of trouble by saving her. They had cast Snape’s intel into suspicion. Still, after a long moment, the witch before them had only one thing to say, “Thank you.”

No thanks were needed. She’d saved Hermione, too. Hermione was glad that they had been in the right place at the right time. She’d almost left five minutes earlier, but Mr. Major had insisted on giving her a cup of tea, as they had been conversing for some time and her voice was dry. Had it not been for that cup of tea, Emmeline Vance would be lying dead on the PMs doorstep. 

The next few minutes were long. Emmeline was glad to stay for a time. Such a unwitting brush with death often manifested in a need for company, if only to prove that they were alive. In this way, they had their first visitor to the flat. The war had stolen her fond thoughts of having the family over, but there was no help for it. 

Hermione led Emmeline up the steps at the back to the flat. They entered into the common room. It was a wide room that took up half of the flat, the common room and kitchen and dining room all in one. The table had been there when they’d moved in, as had most of the furniture. They would have never been able to go shopping, so Hermione praised the kneazle lady. 

 Hermione was still working on deciding where things ought to go, and the twins had already commandeered one of the bedrooms for a workroom, and the flat had a lingering air of lemon cleaner and potions brewing. It was, already, a safe space. 

“I’ll put the kettle on.” Hermione smiled gently, “It was the first thing they unpacked.” 

Hermione moved over to the kitchen as Emmeline settled in at the table. There were books spread across it, and quickly, Hermione vanished them. Another wave of her hand, and the kneazle hair floating in the air was sucked away. “Thank you. I’ve come close to dying before, but never before have I felt so…” She shook her head as Hermione levitated a plate of biscuits toward the table.

“I do understand.” If there was one thing Hermione understood, it was the dawning realization that, for all your sacrifices and efforts, that someone you respected saw you as nothing more than a pawn and was neither here nor there about your death. “It’s just got to be a thing that clarifies your commitments. You didn’t die out there, and you have to remember that in the end, its you who controls your choices. You are not a pawn.” 

Hermione lurched to a stop, realizing that she was lecturing someone twice her age who had already fought one war. She supposed it was her way of trying to be friendly, but she knew it wasn’t likely to be received well. 

Hermione let out a steadying breath when Emmeline smiled. “You really do understand.” Hermione carried the two mugs out to the table. She waved a hand, and various additives came floating over. Hermione helped herself to her usual sugar, and watched the tea stir without a spoon. “If there’s any fallout, you must promise me that you’ll let us take it.”

Emmeline shook her, “I’m a big girl, Hermione. I don’t let comrades throw themselves over bombs for me.” She sipped her tea, “I could have stayed and fought for my life. But I trusted you, and you offered me your trust, and I’m not going to spit on that.” 

“It was just a watch, right?” Hermione knew that asking was a risk, because asking could be seen as prying. She wasn’t a member of the Order, and she knew she had to be mindful of that fact, even now. 

“Kingsley can’t stay with the PM overnight.” Emmeline told her, “And so there’s always a wand nearby.” 

Hermione let them fall into silence. The PM was not as unprotected as Dumbledore seemed to think. He had one of the most secure homes in Britain, and not even magic could change the fact that there were dozens of people in the house at all hours, whose sole function was to keep the PM safe and get him out if things got sticky. 

She sipped her tea, watching as Emmeline withdrew. They sat in heavy silence as the boys finished battening down the hatches and made their way upstairs. Fred came upstairs first, because George was setting up more wards. He scrubbed the grime and the experiments off of his hands for the final time today, and pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her straightened hair as he sat down with his own tea. 

Hermione was glad of the comfort, glad of his closeness. Her soul was chilled. When George came upstairs, he too sought her out. “You’re alright?”

“I wish we’d stayed and fought…” Hermione voiced her thoughts, “But I think a retreat was best. I didn’t want to reveal myself. Best they think it a mystery.” 

“Maybe I went to Costa and just missed them.” Emmeline posited, “Maybe I saw them and ran. Maybe…” 

There was no time for anything further. An owl tapped at the table. George was still making himself a sandwich, so he went to the window and opened it. With a swoop over the table, a howler fell from its talons. It fled without delay, as though the owl knew what was coming. 

Fred opened the flap. Dumbledore’s clipped tones filled the room, “MISS GRANGER, IF YOU HAVE QUITE FINISHED MEDDLING IN ORDER BUSINESS FOR ONE NIGHT, I WILL EXPECT YOU UPON YOUR RECEPTION OF THIS OWL. WHAT YOU HAVE SINGLEHANDEDLY DONE IS, WITHOUT QUESTION, THE WORST BLOW TO THE LIGHT IN NEARLY TWENTY YEARS. PETTIGREW WOULD BE PROUD! YOU—” 

Before the howler could continue, it exploded in Fred’s hands. Emmeline looked between them. “I’m coming.” 

Hermione shook her head. “You need to stay here, please. If you wouldn’t mind petting Croosky and keeping him out of the lab, that’s the smaller bedroom on the left, we’d be glad.” 

Emmeline needed to stay here, if only because they did not know what they were facing, and putting her in her the middle of the tension with Dumbledore was not an option. This wasn’t about Emmeline. This was about Dumbledore’s lack of control. 

They were summoned to Grimmauld like errant children. They’d been sent a howler. A howler. By Dumbledore. To the shop. Shaking with with rage, George began composing a howler in return. “If you think for one bloody fucking second, Albus, that anything you say or anything you do—”

Hermione, nearly knocking over her mug, snatched the unfinished howler away. George looked at her with anger in his eyes and pain rushing through the bond. Fred was so enraged that he seemed almost calm, as though the bond could not transmit the emotion in its totality. “We have to go.”

“Why?” George asked, determinedly looking at her and mentally demanding the return of the Howler. Hermione let it go up in flames, let the fire spring forth from her hand. 

George inhaled sharply. 

“So he can bend us over his desk and—” Fred hypothesized, all frustration and pain. 

“No, so we can tell him exactly how we feel.” Hermione cut him off, knowing that they had company and there were limits to what they might say. “And just exactly what we’re going to do.”

Dark satisfaction slid through the bond. Her closeted Slytherins were at once pleased with this idea. Hermione held firm, hating to burst their bubbles, but needing to all the same, “We’ve got to stay calm.”

“Oh, Kitten.” George agreed, “With that reception you just got from Mr. Major, you can be sure…”

“That we shall be as cool as cucumbers.” Fred smiled. “As the very ice in Dumbledore’s veins.”

That, Hermione thought, was just what she was afraid of. In the end, they finished their tea, and left Emmeline in charge of the flat. She wondered who was having the worst evening. Was it the woman who had given her life to a man that had consigned her to death, or was it the woman who was being branded a traitor for standing in the way of that death? 

* * *

She was not afraid of Albus Dumbledore. She was not afraid of Albus Dumbledore. And yet, when he asked to see her alone, she shook her head, “I’m afraid that’s not even theoretically possible.” 

She was not afraid, but neither was she isolated and without support. He wanted her alone, to make her feel insignificant and small, like a headmaster calling an errant pupil to task. To his detriment and clear dismay, that was no longer their dynamic, not in this place, and not in this context. 

Dumbledore filled the drawing room in Grimmauld with his barely suppressed rage. Molly and Arthur were in the room. They were angry, that was clear, but Hermione knew they would understand. She knew they would never want someone to die if it could be prevented. She had to believe that the people she loved would stand by them when they had done only what they had been raised to do.

Fred smiled, the chill not yet gone from his expression or his bearing. He sat with an elegant self-assuredness that Hermione knew was calculated to annoy Dumbledore. “Telepathic bonds do put a damper on privacy.”

“Anything you want to say to us, you might as well say to all of our faces.” George spoke from where he was standing between the two chairs that faced Dumbledore. He was blocking the exits and keeping up their guard, but everything he was projecting was nonchalance personified. This, too, no doubt infuriated Dumbledore, because it was outwardly clear that they did not see him as a threat or even a concern.

Hermione was glad of this plan, if only because she was mirroring back the disregard and the carelessness that Dumbledore had shown them in recent memory. It was only justice, only right, and it was the high road in comparison to what they could be doing at this moment. Hermione’s soul raged when she thought of Emmeline’s plight. 

“Boys, I know this was entirely Hermione’s idea.” Dumbledore had the gall to twinkle at them, as if to imply the idea that they all knew just who they were dealing with and they were not to blame for her antics. Hermione barely restrained herself from letting him know that he didn’t really have a clue. “She must stand accountable for this atrocity.” 

Securing open diplomatic communication between the two communities was an atrocity? Advocating for muggle people with ties to the wizarding community was an atrocity? Getting Harry a meeting with the PM was an atrocity? Saving a person’s life was an atrocity? Hermione wondered, perhaps, if muggle dictionaries defined the word differently than the wizarding ones. 

George was not so distracted by such considerations. He restrained his emotions and replied, looking at their headmaster with frank calmness, “If you think for one second…”

Fred continued, “That we didn’t and don’t and won’t support every action she takes to protect this community and its people, you haven’t any idea of—”

George finished the statement, having timed it with perfect mental synchronization as if to prove to Dumbledore that they were really inside each other’s heads. “…any clue of what this bond is, or who we even really are.” 

“And I don’t know who your source was, but the meeting was favorable.” Hermione stated, knowing that Kingsley had run his mouth the second she’d left the room with the PM. Her trust in him, no matter the purity of his motives, was dented. She knew he would have no way of knowing of the rift between them and Dumbledore, but it still hurt that she was something Dumbledore had ordered reports. She wondered, fleetingly, if they were were being watched, not by Death Eaters, but by their own people. “Mr. Major, that’s the PM, wants to meet with Harry and—”

“Does the secrecy of our world mean nothing to you?” Dumbledore thundered, “You cannot come along and change a thousand years of tradition! You cannot—”

“Why not?” Hermione challenged, matching his fluster and bluster with reason and balance. “And anyway, Fudge read Mr. Major in himself! I told him nothing he did not already know. I merely contextualized it. It is, after all, the same world”

Dumbledore castigated her, “You do not know what you have done!”  He began to outline all of her perceived mistakes, all of the problems she had created, all of the things she had done as an attack upon the Order. 

“I did the only thing I was able to do!” Hermione cried, unwilling and unable to listen to him go on and on and on any longer. “And I stand behind it. My parents are going to get help, help you refused to provide! Emmeline did not deserve to die!”

At that, the room stilled. It seemed, at least according to Molly’s face from where she sat near Dumbledore on the loveseat, that she did not know Hermione had gone hat in hand to beg for her parent’s very lives. The look on Molly’s face was pained. She had never realized, it seemed, that Dumbledore would turn one of her children away. 

That said nothing of Emmeline, but Hermione knew the horror on their faces was genuine when they glanced at Dumbledore’s enraged expression at that final revelation. No regret or remorse showed in the lines of his body, even through the spangled robes he wore. There was no flicker of emotion in his eyes. Hermione would, she now knew, go to her grave believing fully that Dumbledore had set Emmeline up. 

Dumbledore seemed to be willing to use her reputation against her. “We have a word, Miss Granger, for people who go back on their word for their own gain.”

“And yet, you welcomed him with open arms, and you spurn me.” Hermione knew he was talking about Snape. 

“You mistake me if you think I am comparing you to Severus.” Dumbledore dealt the blow with precision, “As Peter once did, you got down on your knees before—”

“Albus, that is enough!” It was Arthur who spoke before anyone else could so much as inhale. Hermione had never heard him yell, but he did so now. “That is enough. You do not call seventeen year old girls traitors, and you do not imply that they have sold their good name on their knees in any fashion!“ He was clearly beside himself, “You do not hurl words and insults like that at any woman, must less one you’re obligated to care for nine months of the year!”

Fred looked pointedly at his parents, “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Molly gasped. “Why haven’t you told us she’s come to you for help? Why have you acted in a such a way? Why would you ever think to say…” 

Hermione knew these words had to come from her. She needed her family to see Albus not as a god, but just as a man. He needed to be a man in their eyes. She was just sorry that it was this, and not something like compassion and empathy that enabled them to see his humanity. “He sanctions it.”

Dumbledore flushed, looking at them as though they were the worst of liars. “Never have I!”

“You were silent, and that was enough.” George asserted, “It was enough then, and it’s enough now.”

“You dare to put the Order in danger! You dare, for credit and glory!” Dumbledore declared, seething, “To get back at me for perceived slights! Schoolroom slights!”  

“We dared to do what you would not do.” Hermione corrected, “This has nothing to do with anything other than defeating Tom Riddle. We haven’t time for egos. Just so long as it’s done, and done with as little carnage as possible.” 

Dumbledore was not finished. “As little carnage—” He broke off, dismissing them with a glare that held no twinkle, “Molly, Arthur, I do hope you will take your children to task over their violation of the Statue and their recklessness in revealing information to a untested source. I hope, too that you will consider barring Miss Granger from the Burrow for the duration of this War.”

The fury in the bond was indescribable. The splotches of color on George’s face were mirrored in the taunt whiteness of Fred’s knuckles as he gripped the chair. Hermione’s heart thudded. 

“No.” Molly declared, not looking to anyone other than Dumbledore. For the millionth time, Hermione was struck by just how powerful Molly really was, not only as a witch, but as a person. She was calm, and self-possessed in a moment that would have ordinarily sent her flying into the boughs of indignation. “The Burrow was given to me by my father upon my marriage. It is my home. You will not dictate to me which of my daughters, which of my children, I might see.” There was an unholy fire in her eyes, and Hermione knew that she was speaking of the slowly healing rift with Percy, “Not again.” 

“I see I am the only one here who is unclouded by emotion.” He glanced at Arthur, “Surely you see that she cannot be trusted. You can no longer control any association your sons have with her, but you must see…”

Mentally, she begged her boys to stay still and silent, with some empathy and apology. They wanted to scream, to yell. She did, too. It would accomplish nothing, and they knew it. Everyone who mattered knew how much they loved one another, and that was all that counted. That Dumbledore could call their bond, their fidelity, their marriage an association was another jibe, another attempt to get a rise out of them. They could not give him the upper hand. 

“Albus.” Arthur was as cool under fire as his wife. “It because of their mutual respect for you that when you sought to win an argument with below the belt insults because you had no logic on your side that you were not called out at wand point by my sons.” Arthur replied, “Surely you know that, Order or no Order, vow or no vow, my  loyalty is to my family. My trust is foremost with my family. Am I disappointed?” Arthur asked, casting a glance at them before looking to the Headmaster, “Yes. I am sorely disappointed.”

“See, then you—” Dumbledore began, stressing the words to point out how foolish they all were. 

“I am disappointed, Albus, because they questioned that, for even one second.” Arthur finished, “Perhaps in that I’m clouded by emotions, but I’d sooner be a decent parent than anything else.”

“They did the right thing in helping Emmeline.” Molly insisted, “And I will not hear otherwise.”

Love and respect and pain welled forth from all three of them. The gratitude they felt in this moment was deep and true. To know that their parents were willing to stand against their dearest friend for them was no small thing, especially when they were not altogether pleased with their choices.  

Hermione finished the meeting, “You are welcome to join us when we meet with the PM. I’ll owl the details. We hope we’ll see you at the Opening.” 

With that, Hermione rose and left the room, her boys at her heels. There was nothing left to say. It had, for the first time, all been said, at least for now. 

* * *

 _The Prophet_ was filled with words, filled with pictures. Hermione read it aloud. Their houseguest had transferred herself to the Burrow last night. They didn’t have a guest room, and Molly needed someone to care for like they needed sleep. It was only her and the twins at the breakfast table, “Last night at 10:17, 10 Downing Street, the muggle PM’s residence, was host to two masked Death Eaters. Though they absconded before apprehension, muggle-magical relations are being tested in the first weeks of the Minister’s tenure.” 

The article went on, but Hermione did not continue. There wasn’t much to say. They knew well what happened. The Death Eaters had breached the threshold looking for Emmeline, and had the shock of their lives when they came face to face with muggle technology. 

Hermione wished they had a muggle newspaper to compare. She knew that today she needed to check in with her parents, so they dressed and popped over. Her mother and father were shrewd people, and knew a magical coverup when they saw one. The muggle papers and telly were talking about a training gone wrong. The whole thing was hush hush, and poked fun at the government. 

Hermione was awash in shame. She did not agree with the majority government’s positions, but on the whole John Major was doing what he could to help them. Hermione could not fault the way he had treated her, nor the seriousness with which he had received a teenage witch come to talk of things of which she should have no knowledge, but indeed had more to share than Fudge. 

Then, as she stood behind the sofa, her mother came into the room. She’d left to grab some files she was working on at home. Her work was never done. Her mother smiled gently at her, and Hermione knew in her heart that she would stop at nothing to keep her parents safe. She repeated that in her heart until her resolve was firm.

John Major’s government had taken the fall, but Hermione could live with the hardship she’d caused him. She hadn’t used him, and he could have spun the story a thousand ways. If he wanted to use the invasion to call attention to something else, so be it. 

She did not flinch when her parents pressed them for details. She did not flinch when people she thought were her friends stopped sending owls because their parents were Order. She did not flinch when the owls she sent to Remus, Sirius, and Harry returned undelivered, though she knew it was likely because Dumbledore was still master of Grimmuald in absentia. She did not flinch as she waited for the other shoe to drop. 

She was Hermione fucking Granger. She did not flinch. 

* * *

Hermione was still using the washing machine at the Burrow, even a few weeks later. They had hookups at the shop, but no machines, as yet. There was no point in buying machines when they could sponge off their families until they could afford a decent set. Even magical people needed to really clean their clothes after a wearing. Spells only approximated a wash in a pinch. 

She arrived early before Friday dinner, and began to stuff her darks into the tub of the washing machine. She hated when George took it upon himself to wash her clothes. He was just bad at it. He was, and Hermione was not going to let him ruin another batch of clothing in an effort to learn. So, they washed their own clothes.

That was the rule anyway. Hermione was not one to let laundry pile up, and so she snuck a few pieces of each of their wardrobes into her wash. It was her choice. They didn’t know. She’d made sure of it, mostly because if they knew that she was doing their wash, they’d feel badly. They didn’t expect it. It was only that Hermione didn’t want to let it all pile up on Fred, or let George do a good turn and ruin the rest of her clothes. 

“I hate you so much.” Ginny insisted, coming into the laundry room. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate, hate, hate, you.”

“Okay.” Hermione agreed, shoving a pair of trousers into the wash. Knowing whose trousers they were, she carefully paused to check the pockets and found four leaves of basil, a chunk of pranking chalk, and a £2 coin. She pocketed the coin and laid the other bits of stuff she found in the pockets on the table beside her. 

“No!” Ginny warded the room so they could not be heard, “You must accept my hate. You cannot even begin to imagine how much I want to punch you in the face right now.”

“Would folding some towels help?” Hermione asked, gesturing to the pile of still warm towels on the table. Thankfully, Molly had been married for decades and had more towels than she could shake a stick at, and she hadn’t begrudged her boys a single missing item. Of course said the Weasley matriarch, slanting a glance at Hermione, one day they’d set up a proper housekeeping and receive new towels as a matter of course.

“Possibly.” Ginny agreed, happy to pitch in and help as it gave her a captive audience as she returned to ranting, “You left me in this house with nobody but Ronald and now Fleur!” Ginny adopted a tone that Hermione somehow recognized as Bill’s, “Oh, Mum, you must be so lonely, with the twins moved out and Hermione with her parents…” Ginny looked at her sharply as though she was asking how Hermione was getting away with that porkey, “What did he go and do? Fleur de Lis has moved into Percy’s bedroom and it is awful!” 

Hermione understood how Ginny was feeling. She just didn’t want Gin to be Bill and Fleur’s Muriel. Throwing some trouser socks into the washer, Hermione ventured. “She must love Bill.” 

“He looks at her like he wants to fuck her all the time! She’s partly Veela.” Ginny insisted. 

Hermione bristled. Just because someone was Veela didn’t mean they were sex goddess nymphomaniacs. “Ginny!”

Ginny had the good grace to be contrite,  “All I’m saying is that they’re rushing things. She needs to be sure of her feelings, and so does he. But can we talk about anything but floral arrangements and engagements?” Ginny cried, “No! Hello, there is a war on!”

“I hadn’t realized.” Hermione deadpanned, “But look, can’t we be glad it isn’t me everyone’s pushing a wedding on? Can’t we be in rapturous joy that I am not as yet being pushed toward china patterns and prams?”

She wouldn’t mind a ring on her finger and two men in her bed in a euphemistic sense, but all the wedding fuss and bother was not her idea of a pleasant future. The prams would come later. Much later. After Voldemort was dead and she was university educated. Even so, she really did want to have copious amounts of intercourse in the flat. They’d been too stressed for anything but kissing, and Hermione had to say that she was a bit on edge. 

“And yet you’re doing their wash.” Ginny returned, waving her wand to continue folding towels and stacking them neatly, “Speaking of, shouldn’t they be lurking behind you somewhere worrying their hands and offering to do this?”

Hermione  slanted a glance at Gin. “Arthur took them out to the shed to explain some wondrous muggle item.” Hermione grinned, “They’re quite the muggle experts, you know.”

* * *

Hermione soon understood what Ginny was experiencing. It was clear that Fleur was keen to lump herself in with Molly, rather than joining up with her and Ginny in the family dynamics. Hermione understood. Her and Bill’s age difference was not insignificant no matter how one looked at it, and Fleur felt that difference keenly in the family context. 

Still, Fleur was all light and joy, even without Bill there for dinner, and Hermione was inclined to find her genuine and kind. She was distant with Hermione, and Hermione tried not to take it personally. It was abundantly clear that she directed no questions or comments towards Hermione, and it was abundantly clear that she wanted little to do with her. 

Hermione didn’t quite understand the dirty looks Fleur sent her way during dinner. She hadn’t stepped on her toes. She hadn’t commented on her post-engagement slimming regimen. She had coo’d appropriately over Fleur’s ring. Personally, Hermione would have preferred one of the family rings, but Fleur wanted a square cut diamond, and a square cut diamond she wore. Still, she was nice about it, for there was no accounting for taste. 

She missed entirely the look of relief that passed between her boys. Hermione was too busy thinking on Fleur’s reaction to her. She wasn’t trying to steal her place as favorite daughter-in-law. Molly was a mother to her. They had the same rough edges, the same soft spots that any mother had with a daughter and vice versa. Just as Molly did not replace her own Mum, neither did Fleur have to compete with Hermione. 

So when Fleur made some off-handed comment about being the favorite daughter-in-law until someone else got married, Hermione smiled winningly and agreed. “Of course.”

Ginny, of course, was in a mood and wasn’t inclined to accept what she saw as a slight against Hermione. “Well, who do you think will be next, Hermione?”

“My money’s on Charlie.” Hermione admitted, “Charlie, and well, I shouldn’t say…” She twisted her fork in her pasta, unwilling to mention Charlie’s obvious affection for Tonks so openly in front of Fleur. 

“Oh, yes!” Molly agreed with a knowing nod, “I’ve seen that, too. I always said they were adorable together, haven’t I, Arthur?” Her husband looked up from his meal, befuddled, “Well, anyway, I did. And it would be so nice to have a hufflepuff in the family.”

Fred, having no idea who she was talking about until she’d telepathically admitted it, grinned. “Charlie’s a good a bet as any.”

“Seeing as how poor Fred and I will die two old maids.” George snarked, “We lie awake at night, wondering when our hands will be sought by a feminist with strong political opinions.”

“But no proposals come. Sad state of affairs, truly.” Fred sighed, “Nobody has once asked me to marry them.” He leaned like a fainting maiden against Hermione, sighing, “Looks bleak, it does.” 

Ron snorted into his glass. 

Molly and Arthur were so used to the twins teasing her that they paid them no mind.

“Dismal.” George agreed, reaching around her to pull her closer under the guise of slapping his brother’s back in sympathy. “I tell him all the time, ‘Be stoic, my good man.’”

Hermione faked an interest in her pasta. She was trying really hard not to laugh. Poor Fleur looked genuinely concerned for Fred. It was a bit mean, but also fair, considering all she talked about was her own wedding, and at least Fred and George were polite about the difference between tulle and organza. 

Fred straightened, by left his hand on the soft expanse of her thigh.“Just the other day, Lee was saying to me, he said, ‘Fred old boy, you are a catch.’”

Playing the straight man, George looked around the table with solemn dignity. “He truly is.”

“And I said, ‘I know.’ because I am, and why should I deny the truth?’

Fred asked the audience round the table. Molly now looked faintly curious and outright hopeful, as though Hermione was going to finish this little skit by jumping up and down and declaring that she was getting married first, and she would fight to the death with Fleur for a good caterer. Molly was excited about Bill’s wedding, but Hermione could not imagine her glee at Hermione or Ginny’s wedding. 

Ron and Ginny knew which way was up and were all too keen to play the roles of interested and sympathetic listeners. Hermione suspected based on mental chatter that this had been planned if Fleur wouldn’t shut up about her own wedding. 

George noted, “So modest.”

Fred continued on, gaining every bit of sympathy he might from the future Mrs. Fleur Weasley. “And I said, ‘I have but my dreams to sustain me, Lee.’ And I wept piteously on his shoulder.”

“It really is a shame,” Hermione agreed, cutting him off at the knees,“Because I hardly think you’re going be asked. So you might as well content yourself with your dreams.”

George shook his head, and looked balefully at her, as though he had never seen her before, and Hermione saw at once that Fleur was full of sympathy for the boys. Little did she know she was playing into the joke, 

“Cruel.” He put a hand to his chest, “Take a man’s most sacred dreams, and just…just—”

“Knock them down!” Fred continued,“Does anyone boo-hoo your dreams for world peace and a perfectly organized library?”

George’s words were crisp. “No they do not.” 

“That is because my dreams have the potentiality of coming true.” Hermione sniffed,  “And I am telling you with complete and certainty that no one is going to ask them to marry you.” 

If they wanted to get remarried, or whatever it would be, they were going to have to ask her. She most assuredly didn’t want a great big proposal, but she wanted to be asked. She wanted them to broach the topic. She’d done the bit with kissing, and the bit with defining their relationship, and she wanted to be met halfway.

That said, if they made a big production out of a proposal, she’d murder them. In fact, she knew just the way to make that point. 

She grinned, “Fleur, do go ahead and tell the twins about Bill’s proposal. They missed that story, and they might like to know how it’s done.”

“It was a most romantic moment.” Fleur sighed, and wistfully began to tell the same story again, starting with a week prior when she first had a inkling that Bill might propose. 

Inwardly, Hermione grinned, shooting a look of triumph at her boys. They would learn, one day, not to mess with her. 

* * *

Hermione realized over the next few weeks that she had shot herself in the foot with Bill’s promised bride. She went on in glowing and effervescent terms about what it was to be “totally united with the single person who knew her best” and what it was to be in love with “that one man who made her feel unique and special.” 

After awhile, it became a glaring issue. Fleur went on about “being the best sort of wife and partner to Bill, utterly devoted to him and only him,” and sighed happily about how she felt knowing that they walked through life together, “equally invested in each other, heart to heart, and soul to soul.”  At that, Hermione felt herself justified in the interpretation of these words. Fleur was essentially saying that she was not able to love her boys in the way that Fleur loved Bill, or vice versa. 

Hermione came to the point that she could not take it. The jibes only came when they were alone. She didn’t speak to Hermione otherwise, looking upon her with distrust and displeasure. Hermione found her way to the shed, desperately needing just a few minutes to herself. Bill and Fleur were off in their happy little world, and they did not need her hanging around. 

She bumped into George, and very seriously, she asked him. “Do you wish you had that?”

“Had what?” George asked, “Your thoughts are pretty fuzzy. I need words, Hermione.” Hermione realized that he had been on his way to find her because of emotional static on the telepathy lines, for lack of a better expression. 

“Do you…” Hermione forced out the words, knowing that it might kill her if he told her something she didn’t want to hear that it would break her heart. “Do you wish you had what Bill has with Fleur?”

“What?” George balked, his hand finding her hip, “Hopeless adoration? No. I much prefer your respect. It something I’m proud to have been given, and all the more precious.” 

“No.” Hermione shook her head, “I’m talking about the monogamy. The…” Hermione pushed her thoughts to the surface, and let her eyes beseech George to follow the threads. “That.” She finished, as he focused away from the riot of thoughts that had consumed them. 

“I do have that, every last bit of it, though I’m not the sort to shout it from the rooftops, if only because it annoys you and that makes me sad.” George smiled, “I do have someone who understands me, who loves me. And for what it’s worth, I don’t love you less because you love Fred. I love you more because you love him, much as Miss Priss wouldn’t understand it. I don’t look at what you have with him with anything else than happiness, Hermione.”

He brushed a tear away from her eye, “You know that, but if you need the words, you have them. It doesn’t matter if she understands.”

“I will never…” Hermione breathed, burrowing into him, “Never be able to be like that, not only because I’m me, but just because the thought of not being with the both of you, together like we are, is horrifying. But I want you both to have what you need from me. I want to give you both what you need.”

The thought of not being a triad was so wrong, in her mind. It was the sort of wrongness that sent a klaxon to running in her heart, and adrenaline pumping in her veins. The idea of being split apart in any way, in any fragmentation, left her feeling breathless and desperate to hold her boys cold. As it was, she brushed the bond gently with her mind. Her heart was glad to know that it thrummed with energy and purpose. 

“I know, because you do give me what I need. I don’t know how you can’t see it.” George agreed, the same sort of emotions brimming within him. “I want to be what you need, and I want you to have what you need with Fred. I’d sort of miss Fred if we killed him, too.”

Hermione heard what he did not say. She had been remiss, in her worry and fear, in overlooking how bonded Fred and George were, not only as brothers, but as friends and comrades and bonded. Hermione knew in her soul that they loved each other with a bond that transcended definition. They weren’t sexually attracted to one another, certainly, but they were life partners, brothers and bonded, two-thirds of the puzzle. They were unique and complimentary, not only to her, but to each other. 

“George!” Hermione laughed, unable to think of anything other than George playing the straight man when he explained to Fred that they were going to off him for reasons undefined. Trust him to take such fears and make them into something she could easily laugh about, if only to see once and for all how needless and baseless they were. 

Really though, he was right. They were who they were, and they were happy, even with death seeking them out at every turn. What were they going to do? Off Fred and be miserable monogamists to fit some silly mold put forth by a nice, but rather binary woman? Certainly, George mentally insisted, they wouldn’t off him, even as Fred mentally protested. “I’m trying to be serious.”

“We could settle the matter and go kiss in the lounge.” George suggested, “Fred could watch. You know how he likes to watch and—”

Hermione colored. “George!”

“If you can’t say it, Kitten, you shouldn’t do it.” George teased. It had nothing to do with that, only with the proposed location. 

Hermione forced herself to be serious. “George, I’d very much like it if you’d kiss me.”

“No more absurd ideas?” He searched her face, “Monogamy! Me? Perish the thought. What will you think of next?”

Hermione grinned, and tipped her face upwards. Wouldn’t he like to know? 

And then George was kissing her, and as silly as it sounded, all of the worries that were building inside of her faded. They were there, and they would have to be addressed, but they could wait. In the shade of the shade, Hermione realized once and for all that what they had between them was bigger and more solid and better than infatuation that would lead to a lifetime of commitment. They were steps ahead, and his hands were skating down her back, and every part of her was screaming out for more, and yet more. 

George pulled back slightly, “I do have one question.”

Hermione pressed their lips together for a long moment. He wanted to talk and not kiss? She’d rather do both. They were bloody telepaths, and he should make use of it. She replied anyway, contented that he was at least holding her against him, “Huh?”

“That…” He pasted on an expression of confusion, “That monogamy thing?” Hermione felt the humor filling the bond, somewhere with the trust and the passion and the joy, “How does that even work?”

“I don’t know.” Hermione did kiss him then, because truthfully, such things didn’t bear thinking about, not really. Surely that worked for some people, but not them, and if others wanted to live like that, well, it shouldn’t and didn’t impact them. 

Monogamy was a bit odd, really. 

* * *

Fred knew that Hermione was feeling better, so he tried to still the simmering anger in his heart. Instead, he tapped on the doorjamb, “Billiam?” He used the childhood appellation they’d applied to their brother for a reason only Bill might understand. This was family business.  “A word?” Fred arched his eyebrow in a way that conveyed urgency. 

Bill extricated himself from Fleur, who returned to her current issue of _Magical Marketing_ and smiled hesitantly at him. She glanced out the window worriedly, as though he would be expected to care that Hermione and George were having a moment. What did Fleur want, exactly? Was she more afraid that he’d be annoyed or that he’d go and join them? 

Fred grinned, showing all of his teeth, and shook his head, as if to say, “Those two can’t keep their hands off each other. Aren’t they just adorable?” 

When they were in the lounge, Fred shoo’d Ron from the room. “Ronnikins, go play with your toys.”

Ron huffed. “I’ll make this easy for both of you. Fleur’s being narrow-mindedly dyadic. Hermione’s too mature to tell her that her feelings are hurt, but luckily, Fred and George aren’t. Fred drew the short straw, so he’s talking to you while George is outside drying Hermione’s tears.” 

“Actually, it was a mutual decision.” It’d been made the second he’d realized that Hermione was near tears over all of this wedding bullshit, and the damn thing wasn’t for another year. He wasn’t okay with her being made to feel that she was only half a wife, half a partner, to either of them. And yes, he’d talk to Hermione, but right now he wanted to talk to Bill. 

Bill looked baffled. “I thought he was a teaspoon.” He looked back and forth between his two younger brothers, “How do you even know…?”

“Hermione is my friend, you know.” Ron insisted, folding the corner of page down in such a way that Hermione would have screamed and launched across the room at him, “We do talk, and I’ve been telling her that Fleur doesn’t mean it, because if she did mean one thing she’s said about the wondrous rapture of monogamy at the expense of all else, you wouldn’t be marrying her. It’s likely your kids could be triadic, what with having a Veela for a mum, and you for a dad.”

“Ron, I’ve got this, thanks.” Fred broke in. Bill looked flummoxed. That wasn’t the goal here. Hermione was certain that she and Fleur would find common ground, but he and George weren’t above greasing the wheels a little bit. 

Ron moved off, carrying his book with him. “It’s your funeral if she finds out you’ve been trying to protect her again.”

Fred was a businessman. He knew a shakedown when he heard one. “5% discount for a month if you keep your trap shut.”

Unfortunately, he’d also taught Ronnie how to bargain. “Not a percentage below 10%.”

They’d be broke within a week if he gave out that much merchandise for free. No way. He countered, “Two.”

Ron named an astronomical number. “Fifteen.”

That Fred him everything he needed to know. Ron wasn’t really after a huge discount. He just wanted to leverage his maturity and insight to his own ends, and he was prepared to accept the next offer. “Six percent.”

Ron stuck out his hand, “Done.”

“Good.” Fred shook the offered hand, suddenly very proud of his little brother for a million reasons. Somehow, when he hadn’t been looking, Ron had grown up. 

Ron moved toward the door, and turned back to look between Bill and Fred. “I would have done it for free, but you know, a discount’s nice.”  

Fred hid a smirk. Yeah, Ron was no idiot. He was a good guy. Still, it wouldn’t do to tell him. It was his job to make sure that Ron didn’t get a big head over things. “Get out!” Fred demanded, “And don’t listen at the door.” 

Ron chuckled. Fred turned to Bill, “Look, I wouldn’t have put it like that, but…”

Fred didn’t particularly care that Hermione was going to be angry. He wasn’t going to Fleur and demanding she apologize. All he was doing was asking his brother to have a gentle word with his affianced bride regarding some family lore, “Just, please, would you tell her about…”

Fred trailed off, out of habit and respect for their mother, they didn’t use their names unless she brought them up. “It would make things easier for Hermione, and for George and me. I know you don’t like to talk about it…” 

Bill sighed. “It should come from me. Veela culture prizes dyads, soulmates.”

Hermione had told them that a time or two. Fred shrugged. “Well, the Prewitts run to triads. I’m not asking for her support, but if your wife could refrain from telling mine that she’s a bad wife who—”

“I get it, Freddie.” Bill interrupted him, “I won’t mention anything you said to me, so it’s best if I don’t know details. I’ll just offer up some cultural literacy.”

Fred grinned, unable to not tease his brother. He’d gotten it for years, and it was nice to dish it out now that they had an understanding. “Maybe you should have worked that in during your English lessons, huh?”

“Yeah, fuck off.”

“I’m just saying for someone as cool as you supposedly are…” Fred quirked an eyebrow, “English lessons?”

“She didn’t really need them.” Bill confessed. “I figured that out pretty quickly.”

“Please, they speak better English in France than we do here. She only wanted you to learn enough French so she could say, ‘Beeel, mon cher, voulez vous coucher avec moi?’”

Bill knew what that meant. because of course he did.  “I hate you.”

“You really don’t.” Fred countered, fondness plain between them, “But you know, swell chat. Let’s not have it again. You can tell anybody that I wanted to make sure you were still happy with the Scamander set going to Hermione. Except Hermione. Tell Hermione and George’ll hurt you.” 

Bill accepting the cover story. They’d all talked about it once. They’d also run it by Charlie, because Charlie was the only other one who might consider them, as the Blacks were distantly related via the Scamander line. And Percy, because politeness was politeness, and the man was putting his neck on the line for them. “Why George and not you?”

“Please, you think I want to get in trouble with Mum?” Fred returned, leaving the room and tripping over Ginny, who was sprawled against the keyhole. 

He extended a hand to her. “Take a pair of Extenables and put your name on them.”

Ginny dusted off her robes, “Well, thanks, Fred.”

He snorted. No sister of his was going to be reduced to listening at keyholes. It was bad for business for that sort of thing to get out. What would people say if they knew? And anyway, Ginny deserved better. He could finally offer her something better, and damn if he wouldn’t stop at nothing to make sure she had it.  

* * *

Hermione was alight.

She could not help the fact that pride radiated from her in a visible aura. The shop was full to bursting. There was a queue out the door. A good two-thirds of Hogwarts was packed into the shop, and everywhere she looked there were people being made happy by the magical items they found. It was a sort of magic they so desperately needed in the world, not the products, but the joy and wonder they kindled in people’s souls. 

Hermione was working a till, whereas Fred and George were run off their feet facilitating the grand opening. Lee was helping to stock shelves and at the till when the queue was overlong. Ron and Ginny and Charlie were helping, too. Charlie was minding the nibbles, because Molly had insisted that no opening was grand without Molly Weasley’s biscuits. 

Hermione did not let on that she knew Molly had spent the last seventy-two hours slavishly baking and decorating the biscuits and scones and little treats. It was all hands on deck. As she handed back a second-year Slytherin’s change, Hermione spotted her parents in the crowd. 

They’d come, of course they had. Hermione was so happy to see them. This summer hadn’t been easy. They were concerned that she was pulling away. They were trying to give her space, but she knew it hurt them that she was rarely home. It hurt her, too, but they had never talked about it. 

For her part, Hermione was waiting until Remus and Harry and Sirius were back to have a real sit-down with her parents. She didn’t think they knew that for the entire summer, there had been a police offer outside of their home, and their offices, provided at the discretion of the goverment. So far, no one had come near their parents, and Hermione knew she had the police to thank. If the Death Eaters were desperate, she knew that no muggle would stop them, but so far, it seemed to have buy them time. 

“Did you find everything you wanted to see?” Hermione asked the next customer, as she began to work the till and tally their purchases.

They replied in the affirmative, and so on went the transaction. By the time the shop closed and the line died out, Hermione’s palms were burning from the touch of so much metal, and her fingers tingled from pushing so many buttons. 

She was happy to let her brain go to mush. Tomorrow, they would total the math and figure out the takings, but for tonight, they were happy with a job well done. She saddled between her boys as they stood in the comparatively empty shop, looking at the depleted shelves and the disarray that said so much. “I am very proud of you both. I always knew you could do it. You proved it to yourselves, though, didn’t you?”

“Where have we heard that before?” George wrapped his arm around her lower waist while George took her hand.

Hermione leaned against him. “Some boys who wanted to impress me with feats of magic, I think.”

Fred smirked, “Well, did they?”

Hermione arched an eyebrow at him, “Would I be standing here if they hadn’t?” 

“Not to bust up a lovely domestic scene, but I’d like a chat.” Remus began, coming up behind them. Hermione had not noticed him come in. She’d been disappointed but not surprised that he hadn’t bothered to come. 

Dad and Mum ventured over with Molly and their tea mugs, “So would Daddy and I, actually, Hermione.”

“Mum and I, too, boys.” Arthur hastened, coming to stand beside his wife. Sirius completed this little half-moon. 

“I’m too tired to ask you to form a queue.” Fred yawned, “I guess you’d all better come up to the fl—”

George cut into his brother’s words. The flat was an impossibility. Her stuff was plainly out, and there would be no hiding it. Her parents did not yet know she was living with the twins, that she had lied and gone back on a promise to keep them safe. “Er, Mum, do you have any dinner left?  We could do with…”

“No, no.” Dad grinned, and Hermione knew they were all sunk, “Death Wish, do lead on. Mummy and I’d like to see Crooks’ new flat. It’s important that half-kneazles are very clear about their living situation. Then again, maybe the coppers in the drive scared him off.” 

“Who told you—” Hermione blurted. She had been assured by various parties that the protection would be very discreet. This didn’t seem very discreet to her. 

“We have ways of knowing when you’re not where you say you are,” Mum replied, “and when the Prime Minister rings us himself, you’d best believe we ask him questions.”

“I told him to keep a lid on it.” Hermione sighed, hating that the happiness her boys were feeling was rapidly diminishing as they spoke, “And anyway, this is a happy day. Can’t we all just be happy for a day?”

“War,” Remus said, as he had once before, “As life, is pain. Finding the joy amidst the pain is our chief lesson. You’ve had your measure of joy today, and what would the joy be without the lumps?”

Hermione knew that he was telling her she should sooner ask for the moon and the stars. Somehow, that made her angrier still. That he could swan back into her life after a getaway in France, that he could leave them holding the bag, and still proclaim to be a font of advice? Trite advice had no place in their lives, not anymore. 

“Who are you to know our pain? You’re the one who didn’t answer my letters when I begged you for help.” She knew her words were sharp. She wanted Remus to understand, “I begged you. Hell, I begged Sirius for anything, for information for a moment of his bloody time, and I never beg anybody. I begged you to help me save my Mum and Dad, and the bloody PM was of more use to me than my bonded’s godfathers.” 

Hermione did not care that she was not listening. She was so tired of listening. She wanted to scream her truth until she couldn’t hear anything else,  “You couldn’t even Floo, not once? You know how to work the muggle post!” 

Hermione was through with the stiff upper lip, through with not being honest  because she had to consider her safety. They were standing in the shop and they were ruining the opening for her boys. Nothing about this was funny. “Why should these be my lumps? I’m damn tired of everything always being on us. So, you know, just go back to France and work on your tans and leave us alone.”

Remus swallowed. “I deserve that and more, Hermione. I am sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it!” Hermione yelled, and then calmed to tight controlled rage. “Sorry doesn’t cut it. Sorry isn’t even enough. Do you know what we did this summer? Do any of you?” She encompassed every adult in her life in a single sweep, “This summer, I have systematically lied to my parents, been threatened with their murder in a shop, been stalked, grabbed, sexually shamed, really, what is it with men thinking I’ll fold the first time they call me a whore?” 

Hermione asked caustically, watching with rage as her mother flinched and paled. Her poor father look so broken. She was doing this to them, breaking them open. She did not know if she could live with it. 

“My boys have coped with the murder of their mother’s friend, the realization that a man they loved doesn’t trust them and hates their wife. They have coped with the invasion of giants on the march towards Sidmouth right through the back garden, been forced out of their home in order to protect our family.” Hermione thought back on all of the nights that had been filled with terror, “And now their one dream for their lives has again been tainted by this shit!” 

She paused to draw a breath. “I have risked the censure of two governments to keep my family together. I have falsified passports and counterfeited currencies and would have defied the UN and the ICW if I needed to do it.”

Hermione was sorry to reveal to them the dark reality of who she was, but the path of her life had shaped her. You did not take a small girl and turn her into a warrior without it shaping her. 

Hermione again focused her attention on Remus, “What makes you think that I care one little bit for anything you might say? ‘Oh, Hermione, you were wrong to go against Dumbledore.’ I don’t care, Remus.” 

Hermione confessed her truth, “There is no greater good. There isn’t. There’s only what you’ll be able to live with, and I could not live knowing Emmeline was in the ground alongside my parents. I’ll do what I have to do to keep my family alive, and Harry alive, and if that means burning some bridges with you, then I’ll live with it.” She was shaking with rage, “But don’t come here pretending you know anything. Anything.”  

Her mother was in tears. Arthur was passing her something to dry her eyes, a rainbow hanky. It had come from a muggle clown costume. George laughed. “Dad, that’s a muggle—”

Hermione couldn’t hold back a sob. Somehow, it was that stupid rainbow cloth that did it. Somewhere, there was a world that laughed, that didn’t have pretend that being hated wasn’t a byproduct of hard choices.  And then Fred’s arms were holding her steady as she cried, as she chanted in her mind, over and over and over that she didn’t want to fight anymore. 

She didn’t want to fight. And yet, there was a war outside her door. Looking through her tears at the people whom she loved, but could not allow herself to be loved by, Hermione sobbed all the harder. She didn’t want to fight anymore, but if she didn’t, who would? Sometimes, she didn’t want to yell, to scream, to fight so hard. 

She was just so tired of pretending that it didn’t matter if the people she loved hated her. Wrapped in Fred’s arms, and then George’s too, Hermione flinched. The thought was painful. She desperately did not want their hatred. She wanted them to love her as much as she loved them, but she had to keep them away, because they would die, and she would rather they hate her than be dead. 

All summer she had felt so reviled, so hated. Not by them, never by them, but she’d had to tell herself over and over that she could not flinch, that she could not let herself care that her mother couldn’t meet her gaze and her father refused to hug her, like she was dark. She hated lying to them, and she hated feeling like Arthur and Molly had to choose. She hated wondering if they regretted choosing her. She hated wondering why she had to cultivate their collective distrust to keep them safe. 

She hated that she missed Remus. She hated that he didn’t miss her. She hated that she had poured her heart out in letters that Dumbledore had read. Why did she have to make Remus hate her? And yet, it was the only way. She could not take another set of parents away from Harry. She had to build a wall, but it was killing her. It was killing her. To know that she would sign the death warrants of those she loved as Dumbledore had signed Emmeline’s was killing her.

It was only as she sobbed that she realized that she could not breathe and her ears were ringing. “Nobody hates you,” George smoothed back her hair, pressing firmly into her skin. His fingers crackled with magic. “They understand.”

It was only then that Hermione realized that everything she had thought, she had said. Unwilling for the moment to look up, she buried her face in Fred’s chest, and cried anew.

This time, though, Hermione thought perhaps that she was crying tears of relief. 


	15. Summer 1996

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last segment of Summer '96. 
> 
> It should go without saying that you shouldn't read this if you don't like M-ish things. 
> 
> I'm not sure if magical tattoos are a TW, but be warned. Sex, discussions of consent, birth control, and the like are also present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My jet-setting for the holidays are over! I hope to update this more regularly, it's just that I hate to see it end. Don't worry, though, we've got oodles of ground to cover as yet, and this story will never be abandoned, as it's written, save for editing. 
> 
> [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0spkrwl9Qk)is the song the boys hum to keep Hermione out of their brain. It might be foreshadowing.

The alley was not totally devoid of people, but it felt empty and desolate. A dark atmosphere hung thickly about them, like a heavy mantle along their shoulders, driving their gazes to the ground and making their legs rigid with hasty strides under the weight of that invisible mantle. In the weeks that made up the end of the summer, the alley was dark and oppressive, devoid of any of its normal chattiness and community. 

Hermione thought that things were on a more even keel, despite the eerie darkness that pervaded their environment. Her parents were absolutely not happy about her living at the flat for the remainder of the summer. They were downright unhappy, but they knew, too, that she was mere weeks away from seventeen and her legal majority. They couldn’t exactly say much, and they knew that anything they did say would only serve to widen rifts and cause hurts. Wisely, they accepted her choice, even as they did not agree with it. 

To shake the eerie feelings that pervaded their atmosphere, she read, brewed potions, and pitched in at the shop. She and her boys were utterly invisible to the Headmaster, but they preferred it that way. Remus, in his way, had apologized. Sirius had nearly ejected Dumbledore from Grimmauld for reading their mail, but they were keen to keep him close. They weren’t in an easy place, and Hermione knew they’d do anything for their son. 

Even the twins could not shake the restless energy that seemed to settle upon the alley. They spent days and nights working on products, expanding product lines in a focused frenzy that both worried Hermione and impressed her. Their focus was to be respected, even as she worried at their intensity. They were developing a WonderWitch line that Hermione quite liked, and another that spoke to their current political and social climate. 

This entirely new product line came together within weeks. It was a line of protective gear, jinx-repelling gloves and hats. “We got the idea—” Fred began, showing her how one worked by tossing a lazy jinx towards George.

George’s hat knocked the jinx back towards Fred, where it dissipated in the air between them, magic meeting magic and cancelling each other out, “From bulletproof vests on the telly.”

Hermione smiled. Those police procedurals her father liked were now officially helpful. There was a whole line and it was decided that the back room they were going to use for back-to-school sales would be given over to this purpose. They had only had the room stocked and open for two days when someone from the Ministry, shopping with their children, bought one of everything in the line for work. 

Two days later, Fred and George were signing on the dotted line of their first Ministry contract. They were now obligated, so said the contract, to supply complete sets of their defensive items to each and every Ministry employee and contractor, _five hundred for all its support staff_ with more orders to come as they kitted out the whole Ministry _._ The money enabled them to begin importing Instant Darkness Powder from Peru and to launch Decoy Detonators, which the Ministry bought by the job lot. 

With all of this product development, running the shop became increasingly difficult. They were all run off their feet to the point that it took both Fred and George a good two minutes to realize that the woman who came round just before opening time on a damp and dreary Tuesday in early July was seeking a job and not trying to buy something.

Hermione was still swallowing a hastily made piece of toast in the back when she heard George say, “We’d never even thought…” 

They had never even thought of hiring an employee, George’s thoughts filled in where his mouth trailed off, but it was clear through the bond both Fred and George felt it to be a good idea. It would, Fred asserted, leave them more time to fill their corporate orders and engage in research. 

Fred spoke when his twin did not, leaving Hermione to shove her toast in her face. “We don’t make those decisions. You’re going to have to check with the boss. If she hires you, you’re fine with us.”

Hermione mentally rolled her eyes as she dusted crumbs off of herself. Boss, Hermione thought, did not describe what she did to keep this three ring circus functional and the Alley standing. 

“Sure!” The blonde woman exclaimed. Through George’s eyes, Hermione could see her, all exuberance and excitement. She had short blonde hair and a wide smile, as well as entirely too much energy for this early in the day. 

Hermione sipped her tea quickly, vanished the mug, and dusted crumbs off of her shirt. She relished the look on the blonde’s face as she came out front. Inwardly, Fred and George cracked up as the woman stuck out her hand, “I’m Verity.”

Well, at least their joke hadn’t given them the satisfaction of Verity’s confusion. Hermione thought Verity just might be able to handle working here. Someone who laughed at everything they did and allowed for distractions and ego feeding on work hours would never suit long-term. They needed someone who either didn’t get the jokes, or judging from the laughter in Verity’s eyes, was keen to one-up them. 

“Hermione.” Hermione took her CV and flicked a glance over it, reading it and showing it to her boys in a single sweep of her eyes down the page. Their conferral was silent, quick, and unanimous. Verity was hired. Hermione just had to be sure of one single thing. 

She only had one question, “If someone, and I’m not going to say who, asked you to test a product, what’s the appropriate response?”

“Er…” Verity grinned, “Thank you, no? Unless it’s really neat, in which case…” She shuffled from foot to foot, “I do promise to be keep an eye out for pranks.”

Hermione nodded, satisfied, as were the boys. “Welcome to Wheezes, Verity. We’re very happy to have you. Would you care to come help me with this morning’s inventory, while we discuss the specifics? I’ll give you a quick run down of the merchandise.”

Fred and George were quite chuffed to have an actual employee, and, when Verity wasn’t looking, they hammed it up. They soon got sick of strutting around like Misters Moneybags, because the shop began to bustle, a single bright spot in a dreary alley, and they had work to do. Hermione focused on training Verity, and found that she was a quick study, even with a Rowle boy, who thought being a sticky fingers was a good idea. She tossed him out unceremoniously.

Verity was a complete and total asset to the shop. She was a bit formal, but Hermione didn’t exactly mind that, not when teasing Fred and George about it was rewarded with hasty and heated kisses in the potions supply closet. It was an altogether pleasant way to silence her teasing, especially since they asserted being called ‘Mr. Weasley’ reminded them of their father, and if there was one image that did not inspire her passion, it was that comparison. Still, teasing them was a nice diversion. 

It was likely Verity relied upon their surname because she couldn’t tell them apart, and did not want to admit to it. Hermione resolved, after a week or two of avoidance that clearly spoke to confusion, to help her. It had taken her a while to realize that Verity was seriously unable to tell them apart. 

“It’s really easy, actually.” Hermione assured her as they stocked shelves together before opening, “The most basic thing to do is watch how they move.” Hermione explained in slightly more detail, though not much, because it didn’t do to give away family pranking secrets. “If you start to notice their fundamental differences, the physical similarities will take a back seat.”

“So is that how you tell them apart?” Verity asked, looking quite relieved that someone had answered the question she hadn’t the nerve to ask, and was thus emboldened to give voice to other questions. 

Hermione shook her head, “It took me about two months to realize that people were serious when they referred to them as identical twins and not fraternal ones. I thought they were having me on.”

Verity smiled, but was cut off from speaking when Molly bustled inside, crying out as she saw her, tears gathered on her face. “Oh, Hermione! Oh!” 

“What’s wrong?” Hermione hastened to her side, “Has something happened?”

Verity slipped away, ever a discreet soul. 

Molly hugged Hermione in glee and spoke over the loud pops of dual apparition, “Your father’s been given a promotion after all these years. He was up for it along with Johnson, but we were so sure they’d pass him over again. I’m off to do my marketing, but I wanted to stop by and tell you. This is a sorely needed bright spot, boys.” 

George accepted his mother’s hasty hug before Fred did. Hermione was utterly mystified, until she noticed a look passing between her boys as their mother left the shop. 

George informed her grimly, _Money makes the world go round, Hermione._

 _The contract had Weasley all over it. Must like the products._ Fred mentally shrugged, but Hermione knew better. Their products, their rising in the Ministry’s estimation, had impacted their family. Hermione hated nepotism, but if it made Molly happy and eased the financial burdens they faced, Hermione did not blame Arthur for accepting the offer. He deserved it on his own merits, no matter what had caught his superiors' attention. 

Hermione realized as she understood the look between them that their parents did not know the details of the contract, nor the magnitude of the financial transactions between the shop and the Ministry. Thereby, the Weasley parents likely had no idea that their sons or their efforts had any impact on who was selected for the promotion. 

They were such fundamentally good men, to worry about their parents not finding out. To know that the Ministry had been so base would hurt Arthur. How had she been so fortunate in life, to have found them? Maybe she…

Hermione realized something, and shut down that line of thinking so quickly that it forced both Fred and George out of her mind with sudden haste. “What?” They asked in unison.

Fred grinned, leaning against a display table. “I do think, George, that our Hermione has a secret.”

“Come on, love, spill.” George nodded her way, “You’re blushing.”

Hermione placed her hands on her hips. She couldn’t believe that it had taken her years to realize how they had pranked her. “You pranked me! Me!” 

“Never!” They swore in tandem, real confusion on their faces as Fred puffed up and asked, “When, say you?”

George himself insisted, “We never prank you and we always change the loo role. We’re model gentleman.” 

Hermione all but spluttered, “In King’s Cross.” She ran over that moment in her mind, and looked back on the memory with the added detail of new realizations, “You deliberately set it up so that we’d knock into each other.” 

She saw Fred and George exchange a glance, and Hermione cut them off at the pass, insisting, “Don’t say you didn’t, because it’s the oldest trick in the book, and I know.” 

Fred cocked an eyebrow, “You don’t believe in chance?”

“Fate?” George came up with the perfect word, and grinned, “Destiny?” 

Hermione shook her head. She had one question, “How did you know?” 

She hadn’t known, not in that moment. All she had known, somehow, was that she wanted them in her life, that she would always be in their corners, that they were the sort of friends that defied categorization or even rational understanding. 

Fred smirked, “We’ll tell you our secrets when you tell us yours.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t want to tell you, George.” George asserted, “What with you playing so fast and loose. Discounts!”

George, it seemed, was not about needling his brother over a discount Ron was crowing about to everyone. Hermione wasn’t sure she quite bought his protests. Still, she left them to their fun. 

Fred muttered something, and Hermione kissed them gently on each of their cheeks, the urge to cuddle on this chilly morning quite strong. Despite her desires, they had a shop to open and an alley to monitor. And so they did, until the time came that night to go to the Burrow for the big celebratory dinner that Mrs. Weasley had put together. She was so joyous that even though Hermione knew her well, she felt her joy as equally as she felt Molly’s palpable fear. The clock rather said it all, said all the things they could not. 

The Weasley Family Clock was _inscribed with the name of every family member, and usually hung on the Weasleys’ sitting room wall, though its current position suggested that Mrs. Weasley had taken to carrying it around the house with her. Every single one of its hands was now pointing at “mortal peril.”_

Even so, the dinner was great fun, despite the pall that hung over them. Harry and his parents were there, naturally, as was every possible Weasley. It was interesting to note that one Charlie Weasley had popped home from Romania and had escorted Miss ‘Don’t Call Me Nymphadora’ Tonks to what was very clearly a family dinner. 

They were halfway through the meal when a very specific ward she and the twins had set was tripped. She stood in tandem with the men on either side of her, an alert pulling on their magical cores. Mentally, the fumbled for an excuse. George offered it up quickly, “We’ve just realized we left a potion simmering.”

“Yes, critical.” Fred agreed, already having summed their summer jackets. Hermione shrugged it on as Fred continued, “We’ll be right back. Save us cake, would you?” 

“Leaving in the middle of your father’s—” Molly began, but quieted when they prepared to apparate, knowing that there was more they could not say. Hermione was glad that she made the choice to nod, cloaking the fear in her eyes as they popped away. 

They had to be careful. There was an auror at dinner, and so covering their tracks was absolutely key.

They landed outside of the shop. There was no time to waste. The alley, Hermione knew, was hosting a cadre of Death Eaters. Why they were here and what they were doing was unclear, but it was clear that their arrival during a rare absence from the alley was no accident. On light feet, they headed toward the location of the tripped ward, which pulled on their magical cores. They moved quickly between the second-hand bookshop and the ice cream parlor. 

A Death Eater was demanding, as they peered into a window, “You say you know nothing of it, and yet you are the patriarch of the Fortescue line, are you not?”

_They’re going to kill him. They want his silence._

_They need information._

“I have said I know nothing!” Florian was badly beaten, but his eyes were defiant, “I know nothing of the lost diadem! It is lost, lost to history!” 

His wand hand was bleeding, the bones mangled as though to hand been crushed manually and then cursed. _Hell of a thing to do to a wizard,_ George’s mental voice suggested. 

A pale hand extended its wand. _Malfoy._ The silky voice confirmed her knowledge, as he spoke to his companions, “Gentleman, I do believe Florean and I can come to terms.” 

With harsh chuckles, the pair of Death Eaters apparated away, but not before doing yet more damage to the shop, blasting large holes in the art that hung on the walls, causing the inhabitants to scream in terror.  

Hermione added her own voice to the mental conversation, having been too focused on making a plan to actively participate. _Malfoy’s shit at close combat. He trained as a gentleman’s duelist. We just need…_

Another ward began to blare in their souls, and realization dropped. They were close enough to know exactly where it was coming from, and it was clear that Ollivander was in danger. Hermione sent a desperate look to her boys, promising that she would do nothing to reveal herself while they checked up on Ollivander.

They reluctantly but resolutely left her standing on the side of the building, and Hermione knew from the way that Malfoy removed his mask that he was confident Fortescue would not live to tell the tale of his attack. 

Hermione felt fear and anger and calm detachment rush down the bond. Through Fred’s eyes, she saw her boys storming in from where they had landed to rescue Ollivander. It seemed that abduction was the name of the game tonight and there was no time to waste if they intended to help the wandmaker. 

Abduction and murder, Hermione thought, as Lucius asked, “Will you tell me, or will I take you to the Dark Lord? I can say that at least by my hand, your death would be painless.”

“You always were a cowardly piss ant, Lucy.” The heir of Ravenclaw was not cowed. “I know nothing, and even if I did, I’d tell you nothing.”

This earned him the reaction they’d expected. Fortescue did not scream as he was crucio’d. He let his face reveal nothing. It seemed that he was determined to go down as person who stood for what was right, even as his wand lay snapped at his feet. 

Hermione blasted in the wall, preferring shock and awe over the more delicate approach. The wall crumbled, knocking tables and chairs out of the way as she stepped through the smoke that had distracted Malfoy. This was the worst plan, but it was the only thing she had to offer. 

“Malfoy.” Hermione breathed, smoke and debris heavy around her, “Fancy meeting you here.”

“This doesn’t concern you, you mudblood bitch.” He snarled, firing a curse her way shoved the ice cream proprietor into the glass case behind them. The glass shattered amid a scream the injured man could not suppress. “This is pureblood business.” 

Hermione dodged the curses, thrown so rapidly that they were sloppy. She grinned, advancing with careful speed as she wove and dodged, “It wouldn’t do to go back to your half-blood master and tell him that you were bested by a schoolgirl, would it?” Hermione noted, “He must be after something important if he sent his best wizard to fetch answers.”

Clearly, by the twitch of his eye, Hermione had hit quite a few nerves. 

The ensuing duel was brutal. The flash of spellfire deafened and blinded Hermione as she moved with instinct, using every bit of the destroyed shop to help her maintain an upper hand and hold Malfoy off long enough for Fred and George to get here and get Florean away.

She could not kill Malfoy, not when he was such a big player in this game. She wanted to do it, and she knew that a large enough pull on the bond could do it, but she was sure that his death would need to be planned. He would live while he could point her down the right trail, and she was sure she wouldn’t rot in a cell or earn herself a Kiss. 

Malfoy grinned, as Hermione began to step back towards the wall, playing into his hand. She had to let him have the upper hand for a long moment if she was to save the man who was lying on the floor, blood pouring from him.

They were running out of time, but there was no way her boys could help her. They were holding their own for Ollivander’s sake, which was far more challenging than this little parlay. She felt George’s blood spill from his body, felt Fred pushing his wight down through a broken leg. 

Hermione hit the wall, and lowered her wand. She saw Malfoy’s eyes light up with a predatory triumph as he approached her, his wand tip brushing over her throat. Hermione moved to raise her wand in close quarters, only to find herself disarmed, not magically, but physically. Malfoy gripped her wand, and wrestled it away, throwing it over his shoulder. “Mudbloods don’t get wands. Let’s see you fight me off without it.” 

Hermione grinned as he slapped her face, obviously doing everything to create memories for his master to see and praise him for. Hermione was happy to spit her muddy blood, crimson and bright even in the darkness, onto his face as he demanded, “Fight me, bitch.”

He was all around her, and Hermione felt his wand press into her carotid artery. She was calm amidst the terror welling up in her soul as it flowed from her bondmates. After all, she didn’t need a wand to invoke her magic.

Malfoy screamed as her blood got into his eye, along with a bit of flesh-eating curse. Hermione watched her blood and her spit mar his marble complexion, and thought it made him look a bit more human. 

Florean was conscious enough to scream out in fear for her. Hermione took the time he was distracted to thrust her hand up onto his nose, breaking the cartilage with a satisfying crunch, adding a few curses and jinxes that knocked him backwards. How lovely it would be, Hermione thought, for Voldemort to see his precious fighter beaten with muggle methods. 

Hermione’s wand was easily summoned as Malfoy howled, the broken nose now matching his burning flesh. He swung his body at her face, and Hermione hardly felt the sharp pain of the impact around her eye as she blasted him away from her with raw magic. He slumped to the floor as he screamed out in rage, “Avada Kedavra!” 

Hermione dodged the green light, dropping down to crawl to Fortescue, and banish him to the shop. Malfoy raised his wand, rage and anger plain on his milky and bloodied face even at a distance, and screamed, “Avada Kedavra!” 

Hermione was frozen as the light sped her way. There was no way to move, she hadn’t seen it quickly enough, tending to getting the heir of Ravenclaw to safety. At that moment, two pairs of hands jerked her back and away to the same location, the twins coming to her rescue just as Malfoy’s next killing curse had headed straight for her huddled form. 

They landed in a bloodied heap in the shop, hearts pounding and magic sparking. Apologies welled up from her boys. Hermione silenced them as they stood, “We did what we had to do. We’re alive.” 

Her voice sounded odd to her ears, and she did not miss the terror and fear that accompanied her assurances. Hermione knew there would be time to explore things later. They needed to act, and she needed to focus, because her head was spinning. 

Ollivander was relatively unharmed, but Fortescue was almost beyond help. They knew Death Eaters would be here any second, and so they did the only thing they could think to do. Fred activated an emergency portkey to Crawley, as George wrapped an arm around her waist and they levitated Fortescue. Before Hermione could verbally add to her mental protests, they were standing in her mother’s lounge, a war torn bunch interrupting the evening news. 

Mum jumped up, her yelp of shock fading in Hermione’s spell-damaged ears.

“We need help.” George gruffly admitted, lowering a bleeding Florean on the sofa as her father switched off the telly and turned up the lights. 

After that, things began to move quickly. Hermione let her mother begin to staunch the blood-loss for the ice cream shop owner, as Hermione knelt down to attend to the wounds that were killing him. She cursed desperately as she realized they didn’t have a single potion to help him. “I don’t even have a blood replenisher with me.” 

Her voice sounded odd to her ears, but there was nothing for it, nothing she could do. 

Fred shoved one into her hand, and they poured it carefully down the patient’s throat. “He can’t swallow!” Mum insisted, her voice distorted in Hermione’s ears. “You’ll kill him faster!”

Hermione only continued to work, letting the potion Fred had gotten from God knew where to do its work. Magic, it soon became clear, helped overcoming the very foundational laws of medical science. Within ten minutes, the man they had all thought dead was resting peacefully in the guest bedroom. 

Hermione looked around, her ears pounding with that same spell-damage. George’s shirt was soaked with blood, sticking to the gaping wound on his side where the blood had slowed and used the shirt to clot. Hermione was driven by instinct as she brushed her fingers over the gaping wound on his side that was weeping blood, the pain and the adrenaline mingling in their souls. Magic flared, and became starkly and shockingly white on her fingertips as the wound healed. 

Hermione realized vibrationally that Fred was talking to her, but she couldn’t hear a thing he said, and had instead been communicating through the healing telepathically. She made short work of healing his broken tibia, drawing the pained energy into herself as George siphoned it off as Fred had done for him. 

Hermione panted when it became clear that she was going to be the beneficiary of that same healing magic as her boys completed the circle. The warmth that flooded her body and built up into her head was indescribable. On the other end, it felt like a pull, a push, but as the healed and not the healer, the experience was quite different. 

They held her close as the raw and elemental magic healed the damage done to her at Malfoy’s hands, just as their comforting touches washed away the memory of his disgusting closeness. The pain in her body faded, leaving behind a feeling of warmth that could only be described as a feeling of wholeness and love, of completeness. She did not know where she began or ended, nor where the men she loved became distinct magically. 

Hermione fought off the urge to sink down into the bond and float away. She blinked, coming back to herself, largely free of a blinding headache that had begun during the long moments they had fought for Fortescue’s life. “We’re in Mum’s sitting room.”

She was curled up on the sofa, sandwiched carefully between the men who loved her most in all the world. Their mental agreement was swift. George dropped a kiss onto her face as relief swelled through the bond. Fred clung desperately to her, worry that Hermione had not noticed fading as he laughed a watery laugh. Hermione carded a shaky hand through Fred’s hair, and pressed a chaste kiss of greeting and comfort to George’s lips. She tasted his tears, and his blood. 

Hermione tried to soothe him. She tried to hold Fred as close as possible. Her tactile men needed her right now, and so there was nowhere else she wanted to be but in their arms. 

“Love you.” George whispered against her ear.

Fred’s eyes were filled with tears as he concurred, “So much.”

Hermione knew there was more to this story than normal post-battle upwellings of emotions, but before she could ask or assure them that she was in fact all right, her father bustled into the room. There was nothing of his usual teasing and light manner about him as he asked, “Bunny girl, can you hear me?”

Hermione nodded, “Of course.” 

Mentally, Fred and George revealed that her injuries had been far worse than she had understood. Hermione, after assuring them and her parents that she was fine, went to the loo, shaking with the knowledge that she had brought the War to their front room, done the very thing that she had sworn never to do. 

What was done was done, Hermione resolved. She left the loo, and bit her lip as she asked, “Mum, did the PM give you a number to call if you were in over your head?”

Mum nodded. Olivander was sitting at her kitchen table, eating a bit of toast with a cup of weak tea. He was horribly shaken, but unharmed. “Should we call the aurors?”

“We’re going to call the muggle Ministry, Mr. Olivander.” Mum replied, leaving Hermione to surmise that they had gotten acquainted, “And they’ll be far more able to help us. You must trust us.” 

“I am indebted to all of you.” Olivander replied, “And so I will throw my lot in with you.”

Hermione hated to leave, but Mum and Dad insisted that she and her boys maintain plausible deniability. The reality that Tonks would put two and two together was a very strong one, and they had to do what they had to do to cover their tracks. 

Dad shook his head when she protested leaving two wizards undefended as they navigated what was going to come, not that Hermione knew what would happen, and insisted, “There are special people in the muggle government, Bunny. The less you know, the better. Please go, and Mummy will owl to check on you.”

And so they left Crawley and headed back to the Burrow, pausing only to clear the magical signatures on their wands, well aware that the Dark Mark likely hung in the sky above Diagon, a sneak attack meant to terrorize the alley with its mystery and silence. Such an attack told people that the Death Eaters were stealthily lurking everywhere, ready to maim and kill with precision, leaving behind doubt and pain.  

When they landed in Fred and George’s old bedroom, Hermione tripped over prototypes. They mentally worked out a plan, which amounted to saying nothing and dodging any inquires as to their long absence. Fred jogged down the stairs first on a newly healed leg with nary a wince showing on his face, “Sorry!” He called out, well aware that the meal was long over, “The Grangers sent an owl and we didn’t even get to fix the potion.”

George went down the steps next, his bouncy steps revealing nothing about the new and pink skin on his side, where a slicing hex had gotten him, “But we’re here, and we’re very sorry, Mum.”

Hermione came down the stairs, as voices rose around her. Her long-range hearing was still a bit fuzzy, but she managed to smile. “We were in Crawley all evening.” 

The lie, it seemed, worked, because Molly only tutted, and asked, “Why didn’t you bring them back for cake? We waited, and there’s plenty! It would have been the kind thing to do.” 

Fred evaded, shaking his head, “We did, only they were expecting some company.” 

Molly accepted this fairly easily, and told George to carry coffee into his father. After all, one could hardly bring muggle people into a wizarding home. Hermione spared a thought for Ollivander and Fortescue, and wondered how things would work in reverse. She had to hold onto hope. They were alive, and it had to be enough. 

* * *

The alley was closed the next day, and all nonessential residents were forced to evacuate while the Ministry investigated. Hermione, Fred, and George were questioned, but their wands did show magic used in Crawley, and they had erased any traces of the fight the previous night. As far as anyone knew, their story of being nowhere near the shop last night was the truth. Tonks told them to go to the Burrow, and went without fuss. 

On their way out of the shop, Hermione took their bug out bag, while Fred carried the lockbox and George their illegal wands. She was quite worried that their flat would be tossed for information, or beset by Death Eaters if they put one foot wrong, and so she and the twins put failsafes into place for that, taking with them the things they could not hide, and the things that they would need to survive if they could never return.

The reality that the shop would be searched and ransacked by the Order or Death Eaters was very easily realized. They locked up what cupboards they could, and did their best to secure the shop. However, if someone wanted inside, there was no stopping them, not with Ministry regulation wards in place.  

Molly was thrilled to have everyone home, even though the alley was only shut down for a full twenty-four hours. She was beyond herself to the point that she said nothing when Hermione assured her that she did not need to upend Ginny’s privacy for a temporary stay. Molly didn’t bat an eyelash, though she did glance carefully at Hermione’s covered forearm, her implications clear, implications that Hermione knew she wanted to be reality. 

It seemed, that after a few years, Death Eater attacks really did scream 'Fuck me, please.' If only she could go back and tell her younger self how that had turned out. Hermione knew that the girl at the Quidditch Cup she had once been would never believe her. Still, it seemed somewhat apropos. 

* * *

The next day, it was decided that they would go to Diagon as a family for school shopping now that the evacuation was lifted. Fred and George anticipated that business would be slow today, and so it was the prefect time to take Harry and the others, as the Death Eater threat was comparatively low. 

Hermione, dressing for the trip, thought about the whole thing. It was time to consummate the bond, not just because it was the right thing to do, but also because she wanted it. She wanted sex. She wanted to know what it was to share their bodies and their hearts and their souls in this fashion. The fact that a fully consummated bond would enable her to prevent such injury was but a tiny factor in her thought process.

She filed the thoughts away. Now was not the time or the place to tell her boys that she wanted to have penetrative intercourse, though they had talked about taking that step several times. She had to get to work on the potions that would make the bonding possible.

Luckily, they only took a little while to brew, and she could easily slip away to the apothecary under the guise of getting something to help her face.

0Hermione let the glamour on her face fade, and touched the bruise there that had bloomed overnight. Fred and George weren’t used to healing with their triadic magic, and their attempt had not healed the bruise. The magic within her would do it soon enough, but triadic magic did not consider disfiguration of her face to be a serious injury, so the bond did not attend to it in the way that it might attend to a severed finger or a internal bleed. 

The door swung open and Molly began, “Hermione, we’re all ready to—” Molly broke off as she caught sight of Hermione’s face before she could hide it, and she went pale as death, the handbag in her grasping wobbling, “Who hurt you?”

Desperately, Hermione grabbed the telescope prototype and extended it. “Punching Telescope. Not their best.”

Molly grabbed her wrist, “You ought to know better than to play with prototypes, Hermione.” She summoned her healing books as she dragged Hermione down the stairs. Hermione saw no other option than to play along. She could not be calm about this to Molly’s face, because teenage girls weren’t supposed to accept battle field bruises as a matter of course. Hermione wondered, not for the first time, just how odd she really was in comparison to other girls her age. 

And so, when Molly’s worries attracted an audience in the form of Fleur, Hermione played right into their hands. Better for Miss Fleur de Lis to underestimate her. 

_“But it’s got to come off!” squeaked Hermione. “I can’t go around looking like this forever!”_

She knew that a protest was the fastest way to get herself a quick trip to the apothecary’s without too many questions. 

  _“You won’t, dear, we’ll find an antidote, don’t worry,” said Mrs. Weasley soothingly._

_“Bill told me ’ow Fred and George are very amusing!” said Fleur, smiling serenely._

_“Yes, I can hardly breathe for laughing,” snapped Hermione._

In the end, Hermione was not allowed to glamour her face, because Molly swore that made things worse. When she got to the shop, she warned the boys to play along. They had not seen the bruise themselves, because it had only bloomed this morning and they had been back at the shop, having gotten the all clear. 

The shop wasn’t very crowded. Hermione stood on the threshold of her home, and watched as Ginny coo’d over the pigmy puffs, and Ron scampered away. She went to the back to pour herself a cup of tea, and found herself being set upon by one very worried prankster, Ginny having done her sister a favor and distracted the other. 

Fred shushed her before she could speak, and pressed his lips gently to the side of her eye. “Why didn’t the bond heal it?” His arms skated up her back, “It’s supposed to keep you safe and whole, Kitten.”

Hermione sought out his eyes, “It did. You did. George did. We all kept each other safe. The magic concentrates where it’s most needed, and you two aren’t as skilled at healing, so you didn’t know to divert a bit to my eye.” They probably couldn’t feel damage as well as she could. She knew that her own instincts were heightened as the focus, whereas theirs was strengthened in a different way because they held a different role in the triad. “I didn’t even know it was hurt, so I couldn’t tell—”

“Not your fault.” Fred insisted, kissing her gently. It was full of promise, and a shared anticipation. “We’re going to make it up to you.”

Hermione knew that despite her best efforts, they'd gotten a peek at her thoughts, had caught onto the upswell of desire in her blood.

Hermione knew that now wasn’t the best time to broach the subject, but she did it anyway, “You have no idea how badly I want to feel you.” Hermione let her mind fill with words and thoughts and images she could not totally and completely express,  “Just think about it.”

Fred slid dextrous fingers along the edge of her underwire.  Hermione wished he’d pull it up over shove it down and actually touch her flesh, rather than just playing with edge of sensitive skin right underneath the edge of her bra, “Twin secret, Hermione. There’s a whole quadrant of my brain, you know, devoted entirely to getting into your knickers. Runs in tandem with everything else, rather like breathing. Don’t tell George I told you. He’d be mortified if he knew you knew how much he lusts after you.” 

Hermione shifted, damning him for being so unflustered while that very part of his brain was sending over telepathic images so graphic and enticing that she thought she would absolutely explode. He made her shiver with the barest of mental suggestions, the slightest glimpse of her desires  before he switched tracks and changed the mental picture he painted.

 She needed words, needed his voice in her ear as much as she just needed a pathetic amount of friction. Fire spread through her veins, “Tell me what you’re thinking.” Hermione demanded, flushing, twitching as she she rocked against him. The table behind her pressed her closer to Fred, giving him away quite easily. He might seem unaffected, but she knew better. Oh, did she know better. 

He shouldn’t be able to do this to her so easily, but it was very clear that he could, and that he quite enjoyed it. Fred kissed her, and it was like jumping into a lake of fire. Hermione burned. Finally, when she could no longer kiss for want of air, Fred told her, “I’m thinking about that potion you were thinking about this morning.” 

Hermione bit her lip, panting as she bade him to continue. Fred only grinned, sought out her lips as his work roughened fingers slid up her thigh, bare underneath her cotton skirt, and gently pushed aside her knickers, the elastic of the edge giving way to their shared will. Hermione repeated herself as Fred paused, demanding against his lips, “Please.”

“I’m thinking…” Fred revealed, “You’d better triple the batch, love.”

Hermione canted against his hand, and insisted, “Fred! Merlin and Circe—”

As Hermione gave herself over to the waiting pleasure, Fred supported her gently, and checked in on George. Hermione was too enthralled with her own body’s responses to follow their mental connection or their shared presence in her mind, but when she realized that Fred was studying her face with satisfaction as he righted her bra and smoothed out her blouse before doing up the buttons, she smirked, “You lot are depraved perverts, you do realize.”

Fred kissed the juncture of her neck and shoulder gently. “Says the woman who got off in a supply room largely on the basis of her own sexual fantasies. Stones and glass houses, Kitten.” 

Fred smoothed down her skirts gently over her hips. Hermione was distracted by the comforting of weight of his hands, and only realized that her knickers had been vanished when Fred moved his hands away. He affirmed that she was well and okay for them to go their separate ways, and smirked when she stuck out her hand for her poor abused pants. 

“Twin secret, Hermione.” Fred told her as he stepped back, looking cool as a cucumber and totally unflustered, like he hadn’t brought her to a screaming and desperate orgasm in his arms, muffling her cries with the firm press of his lips. “I’m not the one you should be asking for them back.” 

Hermione flounced out of the supply room, and joined the loose group of people of people by the  miniature puffskeins, where George was grilling poor Ginny about her love life.

Ginny was more interested in the limited introduction of the WonderWitch line. _“Whatever you’ve heard from Ron is a big fat lie,” said Ginny calmly, leaning forward to take a small pink pot off the shelf. “What’s this?”_

George gestured to the label, “It’s part of a range of organic products.” He took it from his sister quickly, _“But we’re not selling them to our sister,” he added, becoming suddenly stern,_ his mental dialogue quite pained. 

Hermione decided that she had been quite right to leave Fred to his own devices. Not only did it seem equitable, she got to watch poor George flounder ridiculously with the idea of selling Ginny warming lubricant, no matter how discreetly packaged and elegantly marketed. Magical items could double as the innocuous products they were marketed as, but no witch or wizard could miss the double meanings and common intentions.  

Before Hermione could tell her gently that she’d be better off looking at the essential oils and the matching infuser, George glommed onto a topic, _“Are you or are you not currently going out with a boy called Dean Thomas?”_

Hermione was a bit shocked, as George was stunned. Fred was too far off in his own little world to care about their discussion. 

Ginny hadn’t told her they were interested in one another, and if she had, Hermione would have cautioned her to think of Seamus.  She sought out George’s eyes, and thought, _Dean’s possibly exploring his sexual identity and orientation, and Gin’s a friend, a safe choice. It won’t last, leave her alone, and you’re one to talk_.

Out loud, she said, “As long as you’re happy, Ginny, we’re happy. George is going to leave you alone to sort out your own personal life. You know I’m here if you want to chat.”

“You never give me details. Just because you and Fred and George are complete prudes doesn’t mean I have to be as repressed.” Ginny declared, quite missing the look of relief on George’s face that matched the dual floods of relief coursing through the bond as Ginny put a finger through _the the bars of the cage and watching the Pygmy Puffs crowd around it,_ “Can I have a Pygmy Puff?” 

Hermione agreed easily, not touching the subject of their supposed repression, hoping Ginny did not notice the way she bit her lip as a shiver stole down her spine. Fred’s relief at the moment was quite different from that of the people out in front, though no one but his bondmates knew it. “Why not? Pick whichever one you like.” 

Ginny grinned at her and carefully considered the animals in need of good homes. A few minutes later, Ron ambled their way with his arms full of merchandise.  

Fred was heading their way, looking for all the world as though he had been stocking shelves. Hermione thought perhaps hanging shelves would have been a better descriptor. George snorted at her attempt at humor, his gaze glinting with promise.

_“That’s three Galleons, nine Sickles, and a Knut,” said Fred, examining the many boxes in Ron’s arms. “Cough up.”_

_“I’m your brother!”_ Ron declared, shocked.

 _“And that’s our stuff you’re nicking."_  Fred declared, _“Three Galleons, nine Sickles. I’ll knock off the Knut.”_

 _“But I haven’t got three Galleons, nine Sickles!”_ Ron asserted, his gaze swinging around to Hermione, “Hermione just gave away a Pygmy Puff.”

George arched an eyebrow, “That justifies your theft, how? She can hardly steal what’s hers by rights.” 

His smile was soft in her direction, and did not reveal the dark satisfaction in his mental refusal to return her knickers. They were, he smugly admitted, in his trouser pocket. Hermione decided to let him have his way with his little games. She promised retribution. Unfortunately, she rather thought George looked forward to it. 

Ron huffed. “My discount!” 

Fred reminded him that he had factored in this mysterious discount that they refused to tell Hermione about, and finished the conversation, _“You’d better put it back then, and mind you put it on the right shelves.”_

_Ron dropped several boxes, swore, and made a rude hand gesture at Fred that was unfortunately spotted by Mrs. Weasley, who had chosen that moment to appear._

_“If I see you do that again I’ll jinx your fingers together,” she said sharply._ “Now, we’re headed to the apothecary. I need—”

“Mum, would you mind if Hermione and I went for you? We’ll be quite safe.” Ginny alluded to the triadic magic that indwelled in Hermione’s soul, but of course did not mention it, “I could get whatever you need.” 

And so, they set off, but not before Hermione hastened to the flat in order to, as she told Ginny, brush her teeth. If she put on clean knickers and attended to such matters at the same time, no one needed to know.

Harry gave them a strange look as they moved off. It was only when they had walked away that Hermione realized that Harry had not spoken to her once. Things were a bit tense between them, as he felt she and the twins weren’t being completely forthright, and she suspected that he’d made assumptions that weren’t too far off the mark about their absence from Arthur’s dinner. 

Hermione was distracted by her own concerns with Harry as Ginny chatted and they worked through their shopping lists. Hermione caught her changing the topic, and noted that Ginny was saying, “...also, I overheard Mum and Dad saying Dumbledore’s furious with you, and the twins, Hermione. Just be careful.”

Hermione added marjoram to her basket, hoping that Ginny would not notice the herb that joined wild carrot roots and a magical type of parsley. She smiled ruefully to herself, “I am being ridiculously careful.” 

Ginny patted her arm, and began to quiz Hermione about acne potions. Hermione was thereby all to buy ingredients for two different potions, one for the twins, and one for herself that would work in tandem with her daily birth control potion. Hermione was thankful that Ginny didn’t know what she was doing, as Hermione could not imagine the questions Ginny might ask. She was happy to talk to Ginny, just not now, when things were so personal. 

Hermione knew that Dumbledore was furious. She had waited for his angry owl, but the only insight that had come was from Percy, who had informed her that the Death Eater attack was known, but was being covered up. He had told her that Dumbledore had been present at a very loud meeting with the Minister. Fred and George had asked their brother to keep out an eye for an muggle governmental involvement, and as yet they were waiting for Percy’s reply. 

Hermione decided to go about her life. She had better things to worry about than Dumbledore’s anger. Dumbledore wasn’t speaking to them like a petulant teenager. Harry’s distance was of concern, but she knew that a conversation would clear up any problems. Sadly, she didn’t have a chance to really talk to Harry as she had planned. 

When she got back to the shop, Remus was there to collect Harry, having finished his own shopping. He took one look at Hermione’s shopping sack. Hermione hastened to put away her potions ingredients, though Remus followed her upstairs to the lab. He plowed ahead, though Hermione knew this had to be uncomfortable for him, “Don’t let the political climate pressure you into doing anything, Hermione. You should wait as long as you want to wait.”

“We’re going to need extra training to be able to manipulate the visible magic.” Hermione replied, putting away her stores with an ease brought on by years of brewing in school and for the shop, “How will we manage with them not being at school?”

Remus looked away, clearly having no response that he wanted to share.  She supposed he hadn’t expected her to confirm the truth of their plans, but she wasn’t ashamed of her relationship or the fact that they had made new choices. “Take each day as it comes, Hermione.” Clearly, he also felt compelled to offer, “If you have any questions about the mechanics, I—”

“I have a book.” Hermione reminded him, rather than telling him that there was very little they had not put into practice by this point. “But thank you. It means a lot. Just please don’t make it common knowledge. It’s very private, you know.”

Remus nodded. He knew as well as she did that the bond’s strength would out them soon enough, but for now, Hermione wanted the illusion of privacy that would have normally been afforded them. He studied her face, “If you need anything…”

Hermione knew that Remus felt very badly about time spent under the fidelus in France. Hermione didn’t understand the whole of it yet, but she accepted his sincerity. There was so much unspoken between them that Hermione could not stand it. She wanted desperately to tell him that she had saved Fortescue, and that Olivander was equally safe in the muggle community. 

The time was past, though, for such sharing, and Hermione knew that his ignorance in this matter was his safety. So, keeping that in mind, she wrinkled her nose, “So, tell me, is it easier talking to Harry or to me about sex? I find the gender dynamics at play here fascinating.”

Remus laughed. “I don’t have to worry about your hormones getting the best of you.”

He left her in the lab, and Hermione smirked. It was quite nice having secrets.

In the back of her mind, George slyly remarked, _You’re a closet hedonist._

Fred’s laughter was genuine. _Literally._

* * *

There wasn’t much hedonism in their lives in the next few days.

There was too much work to do, too many secrets to keep, too much darkness in the world around them. Time was coming down to the wire in more ways than one. Hermione stirred her potion, and noted that it was finished. It was smooth, glassy, and just the right amber color. It would, she hoped, be entirely effective. If it wasn’t, well, she could only imagine that conversation. This was a tricky potion, but she was confident of her skills as a brewer.

 It had been illegal, technically, for a few centuries. 

In the 1960s, male birth control had once again been legalized, but it carried the stigma it always had worn. Basically, it impacted the motility of sperm. If it couldn’t wiggle, it couldn’t move, and if it couldn’t move, well, it couldn’t find itself being one half of a potential pregnancy. It wasn’t a go-to method because it did have the potentiality to decrease sperm count over repeated uses, or so biased research suggested. Really, they only needed it once. 

After the one use, barrier methods would again be permissible. Bonding magic didn’t like latex, didn’t like anything in between skin and skin, apparently. In any case, Hermione was not about to risk anything. She knew that bonding magic was potent, and she wasn’t about to let that potency overpower her will for her body and their family planning choices. A potion for them and two for her were absolutely critical. Her daily potion, and a morning after potion. 

The sickly orange potion she was stirring now wasn’t like the morning after contraceptives that were meant for contraception failures, not that many existed in the muggle community besides specific combinations of existing pills. A specific morning after product had not been introduced in muggle communities as it had been in magical medications. This, however, was not that potion, though Hermione had no objection to its application. Rather, it was a booster potion meant to work in tandem with her typical potion, one that would make entirely certain nobody hitched a ride in her uterus until they were fully willing and ready for it.

Some part of her understood that the bond was meant for procreative purposes, and she was glad of it, but not now. She would be open to it in her own time, and in the meantime, they would circumvent it. 

She wasn’t stupid enough to think that once this happened they’d be able to look at each other and say, “Well, we did that bit. What’s say we don’t for another ten years?” It wasn’t like they hadn’t done a lot else, and it wasn’t like they were exactly celibate people. She liked being with them in a sexual fashion, saw it as a healthy and vibrant facet of the bond, and knew that they each felt the same way. 

There had been discussions. Several discussions. Several very frank discussions. 

Hermione made exacting work of bottling the potions she’d made into individual vials. She was using the lab for this process, and was carefully bottling contraceptives next to hastily labeled prototypes for WonderWitch and Nosebleed Nougats. Such was her life. 

She didn’t begrudge it.  The shop was bustling, as most students were buying books this week. Fred popped in to grab more Snackboxes, and looked fondly upon her as he moved past her, labeling vials carefully. “The spontaneity is dead.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Please bury it on an empty stomach at least an hour before dinner.”

Fred took a freshly prepared vial, and removed the cork with one hand. Shifting the Snackboxes, he downed the potion in one go. Grinning, he passed the vial back to her. “I’ll keep you informed of any side effects, shall I?”

Hermione scoffed, “You do that.” She turned back to her work with a smile she tried, but failed, to hide. 

Fred dropped a lazy kiss on the top of her head, and pulled her close for a long second. “I love you, Hermione. Bond or no bond, magic or no magic, you are everything I have ever wanted.”

Hermione, potion forgotten for a long second, pressed her hand against his heart, a gesture known to triadic groups for ages. It was an echo of the bond, a physical expression of heart-based unity. “I love you so much. Nothing else matters.”

The shop beckoned, as did Hermione’s own efforts.

They parted, and Hermione finished her potions work, and turned her thoughts to her father’s latest note. It was clear that there were magical people in the muggle government, but she was being deliberately kept in the dark. Hermione knew it was for the best, even though it was for the best. More would come to light in time, though that didn’t mean she couldn’t do her part to make that moment come to pass. 

George rested his head on her shoulder as he came up behind her from where she sat on a stool, reading the letter for the tenth time. “I trust your parents, Hermione. They’re going to be fine, wherever they are, and I’m sure we’ll know why they were being questioned.”

Hermione revealed something she had only just put together, staring at the letter and thinking back over that night that was burned into her memory. “The diadem’s a horcrux, George. He’s desperate to find them before we do.”

“Well, he won’t.” George assured her, not letting fear take root in his heart as he processed what she was saying. It made sense, after all. The diary, the snake, the diadem. Who knew what else, but Hermione knew there were yet more. “Any news from Dumbledore?” 

Hermione shook her head. “It’s almost like he’s up to something.” She tried not to let herself worry for him, even while knowing that she was not going to seek him out. She shoved the thoughts away, and shook off the thought that Harry had seen him, and would surely have told her. 

George picked up a vial from the worktable’s vial holder, and popped the cork, sniffing. “If men could get pregnant, this stuff wouldn’t be classed as Grey.” He swallowed it directly, “I’m smashing the patriarchy.” 

Hermione hid a snort of laughter. “Really? I thought you were engaging in responsible intercourse.”

“Oh, don’t be so clinical.” George teased, “Wait until we fully launch WonderWitch.”

“Tell me you’re not launching a line of love potions.” Hermione deadpanned, “In pink boxes and glittery bottles.”

“I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, ’Mione, but informed consent is sexy and not all women think the color spectrum ends with begins with ballerina and ends with bubblegum.” George arched an eyebrow, “Nope, we’re doing a line inspired by the most wondrous witch we know and how much poor Fred and I worship her.”

Hermione certainly felt worshiped by the warmth in his tone and the love she felt through the bond, and saw in his eyes. Hermione reached for his hand, but he pretended not to notice, and instead put away the vial with an exacting correctness. 

Hermione laughed outright when he spoke, “Dedicated entirely to Minerva, the Goddess of Wisdom, the Flame of our hearts.”

“Seems a very thoughtful bonding gift.” Hermione did not let on that she knew that the WonderWitch line was going to consist largely of prettily scented oils, magical bath bombs tailed to one’s amortentia, and the like. It was clearly a very sophisticated and understated line focused on appreciating the small moments of luxury and comfort in life. Well, most of it, anyway. There was a reason some of it was not to be sold to anyone under sixteen.  

“Hm.” George agreed, “You think so? I’m certain dear Minnie will be just over the moon. I’m thinking about asking her to help with product testing, what say you?” 

“I’m not sure she’d be interested in,” Hermione glanced at a bottle at random, “letting you pour WonderWitch oil on her decolletage.”

Hermione did not need to say, of course, that she was not Minerva. George knew that from prior experience, and rather enthusiastic feedback on final designs and formulations. 

George clicked his tongue against the side of his mouth, “Damn shame that. It’s got seven different moisturizers, all animal friendly and hypoallergenic, very good for the skin. Maybe I’ll start with the magical wax and see where that gets me. Along with a decorative pot for melting, of course. It’s guaranteed not to burn or injure should there be any splatter or accidental skin contact.”

Hermione laughed. Trust her boys to develop a line of cleverly designed innocuous products that could be sold as household goods, but was actually meant for something far different. “I’m Flitwick will appreciate the charms work in the activation spells.”

“You’ve got a depraved mind.” George declared, “In fact, I shall take myself away from you. You have besmirched my innocence.” 

Hermione giggled as George looked down at her for a long second. She leaned into him for a second, and he winked at her. “I love you. Your bosom is a close second, though.” 

Hermione agreed with a soft hum. “I do have fantastic tits, don’t I?”

The look on George’s face was priceless. Hermione heard Fred laughing from where he was out front helping a customer. Hermione turned back to her correspondence, throughly satisfied with a job well done. George couldn’t come up with anything to say, so he went back to work.

 Later, when she came out front to relieve Verity for her tea break, George brushed up beside her, and allowed, “Do you enjoy batting us around like balls of yarn, Kitten?”

Hermione blinked up at him, the picture of innocence to anyone who might be looking. In a perfectly innocuous undertone, she exclaimed, “I’m just getting the foreplay out of the way. Sensibility is my watchword.”

“A moment delayed, Hermione, is a moment anticipated.” George hurried off to bust up some kids running through the shop, but not before he let his gaze linger for a second too long on her lips. Hermione felt her pulse speed up as George walked away. 

Hermione let her head drop to the counter, hiding a flush that was spreading over her body. The witch walking towards her to be rung up on the other side of the till sent her a quizzical look as Hermione smiled a touch too brightly, “Do you have a loyalty card with us, ma’am?”

She extended it, with a smile. Hermione hurried through the transaction, wondering if the witch noticed the gooseflesh that had taken permanent residence on her body or the sparkle in her eye. Insofar as she was concerned, the shop could not close soon enough. 

* * *

Hermione did not understand the concept of losing one’s virginity. She knew that the concept was rooted in the patriarchy, but still, the whole idea made no sense to her. There was nothing about it that made sense, not from an academic or personal standpoint. Historically speaking…

“Funny thing not to understand when it literally just happened.” Fred interrupted a very interesting train of thought as he shifted against her shoulder to make himself more comfortable.

George pressed a kiss to her palm, catching her hand gently. ‘Try it.”

“Now?’ She had rather planned on sleeping, letting the surge magic settle around and within them before attempting to see if it had fused with her magical core at the moment of their unity. 

She knew the ritual had done its work, knew it as surely she knew that her blood was singing. Sex magic, bonding magic, was potent, and was largely about the blending of magic and energy sharing. While the idea of sex being fundamentally important to bonding didn’t sit well with her, she freely admitted it had been nice. 

“Nice?” George echoed, teasing her. 

Fred huffed. Considering the text that governed the bonding ritual had been rooted in ancient practices that were largely focused on the unity between people and the transcendency of sexual congress, nice hardly fit the situation. Muggles might have called them tantric, but Hermione thought a better explanation was found in druidic sexual mores, those of self-respect,  freedom, trust, tolerance, and balance. These were big ideas, but to boil something that was so personal and such an individual choice down to this position or that position seemed, now that Hermione had been a part of the bonding ritual, deeply profane. 

She felt the realized potential of the bond in her blood, her bones, the very deepest parts of her body and mind and soul. It wasn’t about the sex act, but was instead about the trust, willingness to be open, to be vulnerable, and to trust one another found therein. Hermione reconsidered her general discomfort with the importance the texts had placed on this ritual. Clearly, it wasn’t something they could have, or should have, rushed.

Now, because of that prolonged blending of energy coupled with the inherent trust, there was little space between their souls, and perhaps they wouldn’t have been ready or willing to embrace that without careful thought. 

She didn't know if she made sense. Somehow, it didn't matter.

Their mental interest in the tangible effects of their bonding encouraged her to act. Hermione focused, and let herself pull on the bond in a new way. This time, when she did, the magic all around the room became visible in a riot of colors and swirls of energy. It emanated from their bodies, from magical objects, from the wands on the table. 

She could see magic. No longer did it dance just out of her reach when she was on the precipice of orgasm. Now, magic was visible and nearly tangible in front of her eyes and around her auric field. 

Hermione sat up to look around the room, wobbling a little as the riot of color and energy changed. 

She could see magic.  

She could. 

See. Magic. 

This first glance lasted a scant ten seconds, but when it faded and she blinked, she found herself breathless with wonderment. She had seen Fred’s magic and George magic, and they were beautiful. They were light and color and energy and blue and green and silver and gold, a riot of color and energy that stood out even more starkly in the overcast room. 

“Turquoise?” Fred scoffed.  

“Best not let that auric color get around school.” George noted. Turquoise was a color of healing, of fundamental love for people and creation, of sensitive compassion. It was a very heart-focused color. 

Hermione wasn’t fooled. She could feel what they felt. She knew they were all talk. Her heart was pounding at the realization of this newfound power and the rush of complete and total magical prowess in her veins. The bond hummed with satisfaction. “It’s very invigorating, really.”

“Interesting.” Fred could easily follow the line of her thoughts. Their post-coital glow had faded, but Hermione wasn’t about to turn down the opportunities they now had, now that ritualistic correctness was out of the way, and they could be moved not only by magical instinct but by a far more fundamental desire for unity. 

Hermione quirked a grin, letting her eyes drift over her boys and towards the window, where wind and rain pelted against the windowpanes. “Indeed.”

George ran his fingers gently along her body, as though he could feel any changes in her magic that would indicate injury or discomfort, and it was possible that he could, now, even without the training that would soon be a part of their lives in a new way. “Are you alright, Hermione?”

At that, she found herself beset by an unusual bout of shyness. It wasn’t that she was reluctant to express her thoughts and feelings, only that she didn’t quite have the words to express how fundamentally caring they had been, how considerate they always were of her and anything to do with her. 

She’d had to urge them onward, reminding them both that she wouldn’t break, that she wasn’t spun sugar, that they knew it. And yet, despite the total honesty that existed between them, she did not have the words to express how cherished she felt, how completely overwhelmed she was with love for both of them. It wasn’t completely and totally eros.

There was some part of her that could not put into words what they meant to her. She’d expected some blood, some pain, some strangeness, even beyond the fundamental silliness that always came with trying something new. There had been no pain, no blood, and it wasn’t magic she credited with that feat. This hadn’t been simply about ritualistic sex. It had, from the outset, been a natural extension of their regard for one another, and it was profound. She wasn’t about to put it into words when words didn’t exist to encapsulate the entire spectrum of feeling within her.  

Sometimes, it was very beneficial to be telepathic. She didn’t need words. She thought that even if they weren’t telepathic that they would still know the direction of her thoughts.

Hermione looked down at her hip. There, magic thrummed on her skin, rather like a muggle tattoo of shimmering gold, sliver, and and incandescent pearlized rose gold. It would remain until they died, a beautiful interwoven cord of three strands, interwoven circles that symbolized infinity and triadic magic. As they had once been distinct, now they were woven together, fully realized.

“Weird spot for the Mark,” Hermione mused, looking at her boys when she pulled the sheet away to show them what she wanted them to see with their own eyes. It was rather distorted by the swells of of her body and the stubborn fat she couldn’t get rid of, but it was there, thrumming on her skin. “don’t you think?”

For most triads, according to what they knew, the sigil was on a rather public place on one’s body, the forearm, the hands, the side of the neck, the back of the neck, the slope of the shoulder, the bony part of the collarbone. And yet, hers was on a fleshy and intimate part of her body. 

“No.” George replied, simply. “If we could have manifested it, we couldn’t have picked a better spot.”

Hermione was slightly confused by the conviction in his George’s voice, certainty that was echoed in Fred’s response to her query. “What we have is ours. It’s always been about us. The war can try to make us tools, but this bond, it’s ours.” 

Hermione realized that, unlike so many others, no one would see her bonding mark unless she chose to reveal it. There was a power in that choice that had for so long been denied them. They had chosen each other, no matter what, and they had maintained the ability to choose. 

Deciding that she quite liked her sigil, Hermione followed the original direction of her thoughts, and shifted when George pulled away the blankets from around them. Her body tightened under their gazes. 

Hermione leaved over Fred to grab a vial on the nightstand. “But first…” She uncorked the booster potion, sniffed it gently, and knocked it back with a splutter as Fred’s hand fell to her back to steady her and George kissed her soundly in benediction. It tasted horribly, even as the warmth of George’s mouth and the pleasure of Fred’s touch pushed the taste away. The warmth that spread through her told her that it would do its job, and that was all that mattered. 

Hermione blamed the bond for the fleeting second of wistfulness that stole over her as she found herself being gently lowered to her back in the middle of the bed that dominated the room. She wasn’t going to own up to that emotion. 

George’s fingers found the center of the sigil with a reverent gentleness. Hermione arched into his touch as pleasure sparked within her, “That,” Hermione panted, “is unfair.”

She reached for Fred’s hand, finding that he could feel exactly what she was feeling with no distortion at the simplest touch. The bond, clearly, had intensified in the ways it was meant to after consummation. Fred broke the touch to press featherlight kisses to her trembling core as George licked leisurely and thoroughly broad stokes over her bonding mark.

Rain pelted the windows as Hermione shattered into a million pieces. She was still shocked at her own intensity when, with graceful movement up her body, Fred smirked against her mouth and flicked a knowing glance at George, passing his brother a foil packet. Anticipation rocketed through her. 

 _Silly boys_ , Hermione thought fondly. 

Not to be outdone, Hermione let her fingers clutch desperately onto Fred’s shoulders when his embrace changed the angle for her and George. 

The half-moons of her ragged fingernails made the physical and mental unity between them all the stronger and Hermione breathed out, “Good, good, just want, so good—”

George planted his hand down on the mattress, her hand falling to meet his, dragging Fred’s hand with her. He promised with words what she could feel in her soul, “Right here, Kitten.” And oh, Hermione relished that truth in body, heart, and soul, “Right here with you.” 

"Hermione." That was Fred, then, his voice thick with his own passion. "Don't want to hurt you."  _You're perfect. Just. Need to give your body time. Focus on the bond, feel it._

A flush stole over Hermione as she did as he suggested, following the single cord of magic that formed the bond, which amplified her own pleasure and anticipation, made yet more potent and intoxicating by her perception and knowledge of the way her feelings were reciprocated in their unity. The strands that had once danced separately behind her eyes, were now a thick and distinct braid in her mind's eye. It was beyond any spell, any human manifestation of magic. 

Beyond herself, she blurted, “Merlin and Morgana.”

George’s other hand found her hip, and slowed, staying deep. He’d brought her to the edge only to draw back, extending and prolonging the moment. _A moment anticipated_ rang in her ears, and lifted her hips. 

 She bit her lip, and Fred smoothed a slick thumb over her lips, letting his hand slope over her chin rather than give her what she wanted, “Relax, love.”

She just needed...she needed...

Hermione shuddered a breath and found it within herself to watch as they communicated wordlessly over her head.

Fred shifted closer to the headboard, and George backed off, leaving her to keen breathlessly. She wanted them both, now, right now, but she was curious enough at their plans to let the insistent demand on her lips pass unspoken.

She wanted to scream that you couldn't just stop, but just as her frustration mounted, she realized that she was actually getting what she could not put into words. The sense of loss didn’t last long, as Hermione relished the support of Fred’s chest as he moved behind her, holding her, supporting her, his hands reverent on her body. For a long moment, George stared at them, pulsing against her, the emotion in his eyes very clear.

Hermione took matters into her own hands and hooked her knee around him, exposing her sigil and making her wishes known. 

She didn’t last long, but she wasn’t alone in that truth. When she went limp against a sated Fred, George joined them in repletion, lazily stroking her bare hip in time with Fred’s gentle caresses of her flushed breast. Her boys were the most beautiful people she had ever known, inside and out. To think that they had been missing out for years, and not just on the sex, but mostly the bone deep knowledge of one another that had mostly eluded them prior to these moments. 

Fred stroked his fingers against her skin gently as George pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. Hermione carded a trembling hand through his hair, and leaned back against Fred, their heartbeats echoing around her. They all knew what the others felt. The circuit, the bond, was complete, literally the first time, and figuratively now, that they accepted and rejoiced in it. 

They had been right to wait. Right to wait, and right to not wait any longer. 

After a bit of magic and being gently cuddled in the middle of the bed, Hermione drifted off to sleep, tucking herself between her boys, knowing that, no matter the rain that pelted their windows, their future was bright. 

* * *

Things did change a little, if only because they realized that, in the course of a hastily prepared meal eaten lazily on the sofa, that the Express was due to leave King’s Cross in a week. Hermione thought in retrospect that they had taken it all upon themselves to make the most of new opportunities. 

Not, of course, that she was entirely complaining. Or complaining at all. Rather the opposite, actually. 

She herself felt that same desperate edge that echoed in her soul even as the truth remained unspoken, knowing that they would spend days and days apart. Somehow being in one another’s minds and hearts and souls, and not being there in physical reality seemed so challenging. Hermione thought they were all keen to make up not only for the time they had spent waiting, but for all of the time they would be apart. 

There was quite a lot of sex in the next few days. In the shop, naturally, because she fully and enthusiastically admitted to being aroused by the sight of their brilliance and the tang of potions in the air. On the workbench. Against the wall. In the stockroom. Over the counter, next to the till. They’d knocked over potions, brought down a nearby stack of boxes and ruined countertop displays. Even with magic, poor Verity wondered if perhaps the windy and wet end of July was responsible for the disorganized display. 

 In the flat, of course. The bed went without saying, but also the armchair, the sofa, the kitchen counters, the floor of the main room. The bath, on the window seat, windows carefully warded. Hermione considered that interlude particularly well-crafted, right down to the cooling charm on the windows. 

A few days later, Hermione reelected upon that long weekend, and found it stuck in her memory as something of a honeymoon. It had been amazingly beautiful and wonderful to ignore the war mounting on their doorstep to explore one another, to focus on the good things in life.

Thankfully, after that few days, they’d learned better control, and the rain had stopped. The wards had held, and they’d not blown up the shop. Diagon was still standing, and Hermione considered the whole experience entirely positive. Not, of course, that she intended to reveal any of this to her Mum whilst they were out to lunch. 

Hermione shoved her incandescent thoughts away, and looked to her lunch companion, who was returning from the toilets. Mum slid easily into the chair on the opposite side of the table, “Dad and I want to have a little party for your seventeenth before you leave. We’re all going to have a nice dinner at the Burrow on the 31st. What sort of cake would you like?”

“Mum,” Hermione was touched, but felt compelled to remind her, “It’s not really a big deal. I thought you had a conference.”

“Circumstances…” Mum began, in such a way that spoke to her increasing secretiveness, “prevent Dad and I from going. We feel what we’re doing is very important.”

Hermione felt a clutch of terror seize her belly. “Mum, these people are very powerful. I don’t want you to get caught in the crossfire.” She began to outline a plan that she and George and Fred had began to construct, “We want you and Dad to go—”

Mum cut her off, “If you think for one second that we’d ever leave you to face this alone, we’ve done a terrible job as parents.” Mum continued when Hermione tried to assure her that they were very good parents and that she wanted to keep them alive and whole. “We might not have your abilities, Hermione, but we can do our part. This should not fall to a rag-tag band of children.”

Hermione sipped her lemonade, the fizzy drink popping in her mouth. “Ron will be so hurt to know you find his sartorial choices ragtag.” 

“I’m sure.” Mum allowed. After a long second of tearing her bread, she leveled her daughter with a single glance, “You once asked Dad and I to trust you with your secrets so you could do what you had to do. Please extend to us the same respect.” 

Though she didn’t much like it, Hermione agreed, the specters of what she did not know clouding her heart. 

* * *

The dinner party was absurdly awkward. They were all pretending to be happy, and it was pointless. Even over cake, the whole evening focused on the War. It was clear that Remus was tangentially aware of her parents and their clandestine activity. Mrs. Weasley was keen to keep her parents largely in the dark, not that Hermione blamed her.

_“Yes, well,” said Mrs. Weasley, frowning, “perhaps we should talk about something diff —”_

_“Did you hear about Florean Fortescue, Remus?” asked Bill, who was being plied with wine by Fleur. “The man who ran —”_

_“— the ice-cream place in Diagon Alley?” Harry interrupted, with an unpleasant_ glance Hermione’s way, _“He used to give me free ice creams. What’s happened to him?”_

_“Dragged off, by the look of his place.”_

_“Why?” asked Ron, while Mrs. Weasley pointedly glared at Bill._

_“Who knows?”_ Bill offered, _“He must’ve upset them somehow. He was a good man, Florean.”_

_“Talking of Diagon Alley,” said Mr. Weasley, “looks like Ollivander’s gone too.”_

_“That’s the one. Shop’s empty. No sign of a struggle.”_ Bill mused, _“No one knows whether he left voluntarily or was kidnapped.”_

George alerted Hermione and Fred to one of her father’s micro expressions, and they watched as he glanced carefully down at his cake. Hermione wished she knew what her parents knew, but she had to trust them. She know that Ollivander had left willingly. She just wished she knew more. 

Harry caught the look she was sharing with her boys. They were largely in agreement. George thought her parents had somehow begun an underground Underground Railroad. Fred thought they were masters of espionage. She knew they truly thought they were good people who loved their daughter, and would stop at nothing to help her. Somehow, that truth hurt more than the idea of her parents not telling her what they were up to. 

He asked, flicking his green eyes over her in such a way that left Hermione cold inside. _“Something wrong, Hermione?”_

 _She rearranged her features hastily in an unconvincing smile_ and met his gaze, from where he sat on the other end of the table with his parents _._

 _“No, of course not! So, um,…”_ Hermione looked quickly to Fleur and asked, “How goes the wedding planning, Fleur?”

_You’re brilliant._

_She’s going to talk for hours._

_And we’ll prank Harry for talking to you like that. What say you, Fred? Shall we remove all of his hair and—_

Hermione put the kibosh on those plans and smiled serenely when Fleur began, _“Bill and I ’ave almost decided on only two bridesmaids, Ginny and Gabrielle will look very sweet togezzer. I am theenking of dressing zem in pale gold — pink would of course be ’orrible with Ginny’s ’air —”_ She smiled serenely at Hermione, “Of course you do not mind, ’Ermione? After all—” 

The unspoken slight hung between them. She wasn’t ‘really’ family. She would make the numbers uneven, because which of the groomsman would escort her up the aisle? She was the strange polyamorous woman that Fleur judged. She was too fat, not slim and pretty like Ginny, and she would be out of place amongst such svelte fashion plates. There was no lost love between them, and it seemed that for whatever reason, the gloves were off. 

Hermione heard George grinding his teeth together as Fred sent a very cutting look towards Bill. Rising above the onslaught of emotion in her soul, Hermione set down her glass of milk and smiled with just as much fake nicety, “Of course I don’t mind, Fleur. I would hate to take away from your big day.” _I'd only u_ pst _age you, you pretentious bitch_ , Hermione thought. 

Her boys, having clearly heard the thoughts behind her words, remained impressively impassive. 

Fleur looked thunderous as she shot a look at her intended husband and then narrowed her eyes at Hermione. Ginny looked as though she was in raptures and Mrs. Weasley looked beyond joy. Dad, clearly, was in league with her mother, who looked so utterly proud that Hermione was a bit shocked at their approval of rudeness. Remus was exchanging a sly glance with Sirius, who sent her a quick wink. 

Ron was not as oblivious as he once might have been, because he slowly smiled and added, “Charlie’s bringing Tonks as his plus one.”

Ginny agreed, “Yeah, but they’re a huge way off from marriage. You know how they both feel about conventional relationships. I heard her—”

“Ginerva!” Molly insisted, “You ought not tell tales.” 

Bill smirked at Ginny, “By all accounts, Neville’s a very conventional young man.”

It seemed that a flame for Neville still burned in Ginny’s heart, for it was clear upon her face. Dad was inclined to help poor Ginny out, so saying, “Don’t worry, Ginny. Nobody’s perfect, after all.” 

“Neville’s such a cutie.” Mum agreed, “But you should only date someone you want to date.”

Hermione regretted ever telling her mother that, if pressed to date someone in her year, it’d be Neville, hands down. He was such a sweetheart. Hermione knew instinctively that he’d be so good for and with Ginny. The Boy who Lived, it seemed, was no longer the object of Gin’s affections. Somehow, over the course of the summer, he’d been given the unforgivable label of immature. 

“Why should I care?” Ginny declared, “Tonks says that—” She cut herself off deliberately, with a smile. “Well, I haven’t any interest in changing Neville.” 

George shoved the cake platter towards Fleur, because he too, unfortunately had heard that discussion yesterday, when Tonks came round to discuss the fact that the muggle government was sending cars for them, though she was coming along as a magical representative. He’d not had to use Extendable Ears to do it, though. He and Fred had begun to sing sea shanties in their heads if only to not hear what Tonks was confiding in Hermione. “More cake, Fleur?”

Fleur grimaced at George. It was glorious, because she had picked at rabbit food all summer in order to slim for her Big Day. In the end, Ron ate the extra cake, Molly fussed over her parents, and Hermione shifted uneasily under Ginny’s steady gaze. 

As they cleaned up the meal, Harry beat a hasty exit, leaving Hermione to glance at Sirius with worry in her eyes. He shook his head sadly, and promised, “I’ll talk to him.”

Hermione opened her presents, distracted by the glaring absence of one third of the Golden Trio casting a rather grey pall over the evening. Ginny did her best to keep her spirits, and her boys were clearly angry on her behalf, furious that Harry would cut her so deeply, and it took all of Hermione’s sway over to convince them not to hex the Chosen One. 

As they were clearing up, Remus tapped Fred and George on the shoulders and asked them to come out to the garden. Mr. Weasley followed. Hermione tried not to read anything into the static they sent across the bond, nor into the way that Harry stormed inside not two minutes after Remus and the twins had joined him and Sirius. 

Hermione asked, “Harry?”  _What's wrong?_ was implied by her tone. 

He glared at her, and snapped, “As if you don’t know!” With that, he thundered on to the front of the house, a door slamming down the narrow corridor. 

Hermione tried not to bolster the twins’ assertion that Harry had crossed one too many lines. They were not responsible for minding his behavior. Harry alone was responsible for his actions, and he was entitled to his feelings. She tried not take it personally. Despite her personal happiness, this summer had been very difficult for all of them.

Mum continued scraping dishes as Dad washed them in turn. In a rare moment where Mr. Weasley was not asking him questions about the functions of rubber ducks, Dad smiled gently but with the pained forcefulness of a man who had a drill and knew how to use it, “I think, Death Wish, that young Mr. Potter may be giving you a run for your money in the death wish department.” 

Hermione was glad that, for a rare second, she was alone with her parents. Bill and Fleur had gone off, likely to soothe her feathers. Ron and Ginny were somewhere with Arnold, Ginny’s new pet, and Mrs. Weasley was in the loo. She smiled, “He’s a teenage boy, Dad. He’s entitled to be moody.”

He set down the plate next to Mum, and gazed at her sternly, “No matter who he is to you, you are not expected to tolerate disrespect.” He made his own opinions clear, “Mummy and I began to set aside bail money your first year, and we’d be happy to bail George and Fred out if they punch him. Wizards don't have ASBOs, I'm told.” 

Hermione understood what her father was saying, and allowed, “I think you’d better save that for me. If they don’t stop singing Beach Boys songs, you might be visiting me at Azkaban.”

“Nonsense, Hermione.” Mum declared, “You know that non-magical people can’t see it, even when it was a fortress.” 

Hermione glanced quickly at her mother. She had never told her parents anything about the history of the wizarding prison, nor had she ever mentioned the lack of ASBOs. Before she could quiz them, Molly bustled into the room, all smiles. “Well, Hermione, how does it feel to be recognized as grown up witch?”

Hermione sighed. It was, not too put too fine a point on it, complicated. She did not want to dissuade Molly in her joy, so she simply smiled and thanked her very nicely for the party and demurred with a common answer that revealed nothing of the tumult of her own feelings.

 _Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older_ indeed, Hermione thought, wondering for the first time what, exactly, the coming year would hold. 


	16. 1996-1997 School Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember that Harry was a broody, normal, teenager through most of HPB. Then, he was dealing with the upcoming war and grief. He's not lost a father, but what if he's gained something else, a partisan little birdy in his ear?

Hermione was so angry she thought she might spit. Ginny patted her hand and it crackled on the seat between them, magic jumping between the two young women. “Hermione, just send them an owl and tell them how you feel.” 

They were chuffing along to Scotland, and her boys were happy. They were happy. Hermione was so frustrated and hurt. Worse yet, they refused to articulate why they were both so bloody overjoyed to be rid of her. They didn’t even think about how sad it was to be apart. She knew, for she was inside their brains. 

Hermione sighed. “At least you're beyond teasing me.”

“It’s not sporting to kick a girl whilst she’s down.” Ginny returned, a sly smile blooming on her face. “Anyway, back on topic. The torrential downpour? The three-day, non-stop, torrential downpour with thunder and gale force winds?” 

“Very, very, frightening.” Hermione sang, hoping that Freddie would come and give her strength to say, “‘Of course I’ll fucking do it.’” She let her expression rise as Ginny’s hopes were raised, and then cruelly dashed them, “No! I’m not telling you anything about sex with your brothers. Merlin and Morgana, Ginny!” 

“But there was hail!” Ginny wheedled, “And how am I supposed to know what I’m doing if my own sister won’t educate me?”

“You know if you’ve questions I will answer them. I’ll even lend you a book.” She held up a hand as Ginny started to interject once again, “Ginny, ‘Are they, you know, identical?’ does not count as a question, because the answer to that entirely inappropriate query has no bearing on your sexual health.” 

“I’m only trying to prepare you for the next game of night quidditch.” Ginny insisted.

“‘Hermione Granger has engaged in sexual intercourse!’ is not branded across my face like Marietta’s acne, and I’ve no interest in telling anyone.” Hermione primly pulled out her book, for these sorts of things never happened in a Betty Neels novel. 

“You don’t think anyone’s going to notice the changes in your magic?” Ginny asked, petting Crooksy, the teasing replaced by clear concern, “Because it is different, and you know it is.”

“I should have never told you I can see magical energy.” Hermione declared, hating that the kneazle had been let out of the sack by her inability to keep from letting shock and wonder and dizziness show up on her face. “Anyway, it has stabilized. Remus would have never let me come if he thought there was the slightest—”

“Forgive me for saying so, but I think Remus is distracted.” Ginny referenced Harry’s mercurial moods, not that the elephant in the compartment needed explication. “You need support more now than ever, and I don’t want you to forget me, and Luna, and Neville, and all of our friends.” 

Hermione nodded. “Thanks, Gin.” 

Hermione knew the next weeks would be endless, and that visits to the village, where she might meet with Fred and George, would be few and far between. Training, though frequent, was not time for socialization. Still, she could see magic, bend wards, and knew all of the passages in and out of Hogwarts. She would see her boys, even if they were hiding something and blocking her out. 

Hermione heard the knut drop as her boys realized she wasn’t born yesterday. She knew they were hiding something. The question remained, however, because even revealing that she knew they were up to something only had them doubling down to keep her out. The shop was closed for the day, and so they were gadding about London, though they would not say where they were, what they were up to with such subterfuge, or why they were doing it. 

Hermione turned to her prefect duties, wondering why her wrists hurt so badly. She knew it was coming from Fred and George, but nothing she said about their clear experimentation with some product or other made it stop, though they became quite annoyed when she sent them healing. It did stop, thankfully, and by the time Hermione arrived at Hogwarts she had moved past worried and back into the comfortable territory of annoyed. 

They didn’t even miss her. Hermione huffed as she settled next to Ron, who had seemingly taken it upon himself to stick by her side. She tilted a glance at him, and sipped her water goblet, “Were you put up to this?” She flicked a glance at her friend, and knew in an instant that she had missed a conversation to than end. “That’s it. I’m going to make them suffer. You were warned.”

Ron blanched, “’Mione, I’m just being a good brother.”

“Not to me.” Hermione returned, ignoring the slightly indignant protests from George and Fred. She paused, ready to mentally give them what for when she realized that they were, in fact, telling her the truth. 

She realized in an instant that it had not been her boys who had told Ron to keep an eye on her. It had been, she concluded, one Harry Potter. Why? Had he been looking for a way to apologize for the tension and the way they were barely speaking? Hermione looked to him, offering a tentative smile, and he scowled, and looked away.

Hermione’s soul bled. Harry would not meet her eye. Gently, Ron leaned against her. “I really think he’s trying.” 

Hermione turned back to her dinner, knowing that Ginny had been at that awful Slug Club meeting and that if that had anything to do with it, she’d soon know.  Buoyed by that truth, she watched as Dumbledore began to speak. Her hope was short lived. She opened the mental connection fully. It was clear that after a few words, her boys needed to hear this. 

Dumbledore continued, “ _The castle’s magical fortifications have been strengthened over the summer, we are protected in new and more powerful ways, but we must still guard scrupulously against carelessness on the part of any student or member of staff. I urge you, therefore, to abide by any security restrictions that your teachers might impose upon you, however irksome you might find them — in particular, the rule that you are not to be out of bed after hours._ ” 

Hermione understood the truths in these words as he went along. He knew that the bond had been formalized, if not legalized, and he was not above exploiting the work they had done to protect students to guilt her into ignoring her bondmates. He knew about the training, and was saying it would no long take place.

Remus looked thunderous, behind his polite mask. Dumbledore’s blue eyes fell upon her, and he nodded slightly but firmly in her direction. _“But now, your beds await, as warm and comfortable as you could possibly wish, and I know that your top priority is to be well- rested for your lessons tomorrow.”_

Snape was not here. Snape was gone. Nothing had even been said about him, beyond saying that Horace Slughorn would be pitching until Snape’s return. Hermione felt sick, and knew in an instant that Dumbledore was up to something with the Potion’s master. She knew enough to know that Snape was still actively spying, and it seemed telling indeed that he was not here to be Dumbledore’s pet spy. George and Fred were grim through the bond. 

Hermione tried to get Harry’s attention, but he had no time for her and bent down over his trainer laboriously the second she began to capture his notice and focus. She pretended to look away, and saw him sharing a telling look with Dumbledore. That was all the tell she needed. 

Lost in thought, Hermione wasted no time in ushering the first-years into the bedrooms, but found that her haste had not enabled her to speak to Remus, who was deputy head of house, below McGonagall. He was ushered away by said kindly woman for a hot toddy before Hermione could speak. She scooped up Crooksy and settled in for a long chat with her boys. 

Harry, it was clear, was up to something. Snape’s disappearance shook her like little else. 

Nothing came to her in the coming days. Remus taught his DADA, Slughorn his Potions, for Snape was clearly becoming more and more involved in the War, and all seemed well at Hogwarts. But Hermione knew better. It was not the surface appearance that mattered. It was akin to the surface of a lake. There lurked a great many things below. Where was Snape? And what had become of Harry? 

Hermione found herself annoyed in her first potions lesson. Slughorn and his supercilious _“Well, well, take twenty well-earned points for Gryffindor, Miss Granger,”_ confirmed every single one of her suspicions. She was to play the role of the bookworm swot in his classes. She was to be the model muggleborn, the non-threatening, eager to assimilate, eager to please, witch who never quite felt as though she belonged. In doing so, she would make herself invisible. After all, being underestimated would serve her well. There was no one so underestimated as Goody-Goody Granger. 

Hermione nodded absentmindedly when Harry asked for her silver knife. She knew instantly that he was up to something, because using the silver knife would react with the pockets of fluid and release more juices. Still, Hermione wondered how such a lackluster student would know that, and…

Hermione looked at Harry’s potions text. It was ragged and battered, nothing like the new texts he always had as a matter of course. Hermione made some mention of his book, and he dissembled, “Well, we didn’t know we’d be taking potions, did we?” He grinned in Ron’s direction, who looked up from a book he’d borrowed from the school’s surplus. 

Hermione did not say that Harry had walked into the room with that book, having switched the school’s book out with his in his knapsack. Hermione had learned how to do that sort of thing at thirteen. 

 _The old switcheroo._ George’s suspicions were aroused. 

Fred scoffed down the bond, and Hermione saw him flinging a bit of beetroot at George across the lab’s worktable. _It’s 1929, is it? Or are we stuck in a muggle talkie?_

Hermione’s heart unclenched. She looked quickly at her potion. _Might serve you well to ruin that, Kitten._

_Let’s see what he does with a little luck._

Hermione happily ruined her potion, knowing that the disappointment on her face was believable enough when Harry won the potion that was up for grabs. Through Ron pressed him, he said nothing at dinner about his newfound mastery of potions. Hermione struggled with the idea of stealing his book, but decided against it.

They were all on the same side, after all. 

* * *

 

Her feelings were tested over the coming weeks. She saw less and less of Harry. He was always running away from her, it seemed. Even Ron had taken to spending extra time with her. One night, Harry protested Ron’s assertion that he was going to work with Hermione on homework, causing Ron to snap, “What is your problem?”

“Maybe the problem Ron, is that you haven’t got one!” Harry returned, encompassing all the present Weasley’s in a single glance, before storming out of the room. 

Ginny sighed. “He’s just got a big head because now the w _hole Wizarding world has had to admit that_ he’s _right about Voldemort being back and that_ we _really have fought him twice in the last two years and escaped both times.”_ She continued in an even lower undertone, “Wouldn’t they love to see their Chosen One acting this way?” 

Ron ripped into a chocolate frog. “Quidditch’ll help him. You’ll see.” 

Hermione only hoped he was right. The night before tryouts, she felt that warm pull on her magic that told her she was close to her beloveds. Hermione, looking up from her books where she was studying with Susan Bones, demanded, _Where are you?_

 _Mum’s kitchen._ Fred answered, very serenely, as though her demand was expected. _George’s here, too._

Hermione wasn’t entirely convinced. She supposed she was just missing them more now than usual. She missed, it seemed, their enthusiastic quidditch chatter. _Don’t,_ she warned them, _let that go to your heads. I’m clearly deluded._

She felt their laughter, but knew the truth. She was as equally missed and longed for, and she knew it. Hermione declared that they were, come hell or high water, finding some way to see each other this weekend. She was determined that, even if they had to skip training, they would spend time together. 

 Susie looked concerned, “Hermione, are you okay?”

Hermione nodded, knowing that she had been staring off into space for the duration of her conversation. “The numbers are crossing before my eyes.” She rolled her shoulders, “Arithmancy…” 

“Tell me about it.” Declared the Hufflepuff, “I can only work on it in half-hour blocks.” 

Hermione knew she had been working on the problem for quite a bit longer than that, and so she began to finish up for the evening, knowing full well that she wanted to be up early enough to work a bit before tryouts. 

However, that was not to be, as another girl Hermione only knew in passing raced up to Susan and whispered into her ear about the first game of night quidditch, held traditionally as it was on the night before tryouts. Hermione thereby found herself sitting in the stands with Susan, Hannah, Ginny, Luna, and the Patil twins, as was tradition. Ginny, for some odd reason, was not playing in the first half of the game. 

Though they still worked on individual pastimes and gossiped, there was now a bottle of liquor being passed between them. Hermione looked carefully at Ginny, “I’m not covering for you if Ron snitches to your Mum.”

Ginny took a dainty swig. “Please.”

She passed the bottle to Parvati, who made no bones about pouring an ample amount of the liquor into her thermos, mixing it with whatever she was drinking to warm herself in the chilly heights of the stands in the late September night. Hermione was not imbibing. She hardly ever did, and there was work to be done. 

“Wouldn’t he tell on you, too, Hermione?” Padma asked, her sketchpad open on her lap. 

Hermione snorted gently. “No.” 

She was distracted by the feeling of nearness to her boys. She wondered, not for the first time, if the bond was protesting their distance and separation and was urging her to find them and be near to them.  She wanted to just hear them, see them, so desperately. Training seemed to make it worse, because the moments were so fleeting and the work so laborious. 

Ginny understood the look on her face, and patted Hermione’s hand. Hermione let their chatter wash over her as she rested within the bond. Hermione felt Ginny nudging her, with a forced joviality. “Right, Hermione?”

Hermione had missed a good portion of the conversation. She apologized, trying to fumble for an excuse. 

Luna sighed dreamily, “I do so love when nargles and wrackspurts mingle. It’s a sign of true and abiding love.”

Any group of young women would be all over that pronouncement, and Hermione’s friends were no exception. They giggled and laughed and demanded information. Warm and languid from the chemical effects of the bond easing the magical strain within her, Hermione simply smiled gently. 

This, of course, inflamed her friends. Lavender hesitated, as they laughed and teased. “You’ve been really close with Ron lately, Hermione. It’s not Ron, is it?”

Before Hermione could reply, an unexpected voice boomed over the broadcast system. “You didn’t think you could have night quidditch without me, did you?” 

The students cheered uproariously. Susan clapped so happily she almost lost hold of their contraband bottle. “Lee’s back!” The stands and the pitch reverberated with glee, but Hermione herself was silent, breathless, on tenterhooks. 

Hermione’s heart bloomed. _Are you both…_

Ginny shoved her to her feet. Hermione’s heart pounded. 

She had her answer in mere seconds, “Stop hogging the microphone, Lee. Hogwarts likes us better, don’t they, George?”

Hermione took off running. 

George’s reply was short, but it was Lee who took over announcing with the wry remark that “Somebody sure does…” He cleared his throat and began, “All right you barmy fuckers, let’s play quidditch!” 

Someone blew a whistle on the ground, and Lee called out, “And they’re off!” 

Though everyone forgot that remark in the revelry of the evening, a gaggle of fifth and sixth-year girls did forgot nothing of the way Hermione Granger took off running through the stands and up to the announcers booth, nearly levitating with every step. 

Poor Ginny was left to smile smugly as she stared back at unhinged jaws. She had one thing only to say, “Ron fancies you, Lavender. He’s a bit thick, so you’ll have to take the lead, but I can assure you it’s not Ron Hermione loves.”

“Well, which twin is she dating?” Parvati demanded, seemingly quite put out that Hermione had never told her roommates she was dating an older man. “How did she ever choose?”

Ginny knew that Parvati meant that Hermione was close with both of her older brothers, “She’s always saying that she flipped a galleon. Says it was fair.” 

Luna, never one to be discounted, smiled knowingly at Ginny, and leaned into her personal space, smelling of spearmint and vodka. “Wrackspurts and nargles are a very rare combination, especially when united by humdingers.”  

Ginny winked, and her best friend nodded gently. Luna Lovegood would keep Hermione’s secret. The other girls began to go on about how much Hermione was ruled by logic and impartiality, even in love. Ginny and Luna knew better. After all, anyone who knew anything about humdingers knew they reviled cold logic. 

* * *

Hermione, quite pleased with their very logical use of the Room of Requirement, came down to breakfast to find Ron alarmed and Ginny placating him, “See, there’s Hermione. Safe and sound.”

“Where were you—” Ron watched as her grin grew and Ginny rolled her eyes. Ron grew red and indignant. “I was worried sick! You couldn’t have sent a note?”

“Ginny knew where I was.” Hermione bit into her toast, quite famished. “Sorry, I made you worry, Ron. You’re sweet.”

He spluttered. “You’re—you’re—”

Hermione sighed, and smiled, reaching for the chocolate danishes. She was awash with endorphins and was quite enjoying the lingering impacts of a desperately needed sojourn in her headspace. 

Ginny put her brother to rights firmly. “Floats aren’t catching. It’ll fade.”

Hermione hummed gently, “Not too soon, I hope.”

“Eat your breakfast, Hermione.” Ginny suggested, looking around with surprise. “For the next half hour, I’m the logical sister. How nice.”

“It’d be nicer if you’d give me an hour.” Hermione murmured, “I still can’t feel my calves.”

Ron colored, his mouth dropping open, displaying masticated food for all to see. Hermione grinned at him as though he had solved world hunger when he grabbed an orange, and left the table, declaring that he was going to help Harry prepare for tryouts. 

Ginny laughed as he raced away, looking to Hermione, whose gaze was sharp. The wild-haired young woman straightened, “Now, then. I want to know what happened last night.”

“So do I.” Ginny asserted without heat. 

Hermione ignored her, as was her wont, “What’s the word around the tower?”

“Oddly, the odds are dead even between Fred and George. Nobody knows.” Ginny marveled, “It’s amazing.” 

Hermione snickered, “You know, it really is.” 

Ginny took a second to process what Hermione was saying, repeating, “Dead even between…” She blinked twice, “I suppose telling me it’s amazing is your way of saying thank you for being your wingman last night?”

Hermione sipped her overly sweet tea, “Don’t be absurd, Ginerva. You were my wingwoman.” Hermione bit into her eggs, “Now, about tryouts. I overheard McLaggen going on about Old Sluggy on my way down the table. You’d best hand him his rear.”

“I’m never going to tell Ron how nice you are.” Ginny vowed, “You have your secrets and I’ve mine.” 

Hermione raised her teacup in mock salute. That balance suited her quite well. 

Consequently, it was small potatoes to confound McLaggen. Hermione did it of her own volition,  knowing that Ron would win the spot by merit. This was merely a boon for herself. His yowling and posturing, like a tom looking for something to mark, was infringing upon her good mood. If there was one thing Hermione knew, it was to do what she had to do to preserve endorphins.

_We know better, Kitten._

_You do not. Sentimental._ Hermione barely prevented audibly scoffing, such was the force of her denial. 

_I promise I won’t tell Ron and Gin that you rode to their defense._

_But you’d best do your best to play stupid. You look too pleased and too satisfied by half._

Looking down at McLaggen, Hermione noted that he had caught her glance, and gave her a lecherous smile in return. It  sent a shiver of disgust down her spine. She hoped that Ron and Ginny one day respected all that she did for them. 

In her brain, Fred laughed. _He just winked at you!_

As McLaggen’s eyes slipped lower and lingered, the triune humor at his misplaced attempts faded. Hermione simply felt annoyed, but it was intensified by similar emotions that were not her own. 

_Tell him your eyes aren’t on your jumper._

Inwardly, Hermione rolled her eyes, ignoring George’s helpful suggestion that she remove his eyes from his head and put them into his porridge tomorrow. She gave McLaggen the cut direct and cheered loudly for Ron.

 Lavender looked at her askance, and then smiled. “I wish I had a sister like you, Hermione.” Hermione did not allow that perhaps, and only perhaps, she might very well one day have the genuine article for a sister. And anyway, she’d take a dozen Lavenders over Fleur. 

She noted the cause of Hermione’s stoney expression, and glared grumpily at McLaggen. Leaning over to Parvati, she muttered something and they nodded unison and then smiled smugly at McLaggen. It was clear that no Lion with any self-respect or house loyalty would now be accepting a date with Cormac. 

Good, approved the voices in her head. Merlin bless those chatty girls. 

Determined to get even with their posturing, Hermione yawned delicately. The girls zeroed in on that emotion and on Hermione’s calculated blush. “I’m sorry…” She apologized, looking down at her lap, with no need to force a bit of sparkle into her eyes. It was there naturally, for she was pranking. 

Parvati blurted, “Hermione, we know you’re a bit shy, well, but if you ever need advice, I’d…” She continued on, “I’d be happy to help you.”

Hermione shook her head gently, overcome with genuine emotion. She somehow doubted that Parvati could educate her. Hermione knew that some of the things she could tell them about sex would shock them. Now was not the time, not when Parvati was being so supportive and open in a culture that was anything but positive about sexual education and exploration. Instead, Hermione simply shook her head, “I have a book.”

They did not look surprised, though Parvati did look a bit concerned. After all, such an applied art could not really be learned through books. It really did help to have people to talk to, not that Hermione truly did, beyond her mother. She wasn’t keen to go to her mother with specifics, true, but her mother was there for generalities. 

“I bet George gets a real laugh out of that.” Lavender fished. 

Hermione pasted a look of innocence on her face, and demurred, “Fred does too, of course. They’re close, you know.”

“Oh, Hermione.” Lavender sighed. 

Parvati, however, said nothing. She was lost in thought for a long moment before she did begin to speak again. After the trials were over, she purposefully took Lavender’s arm, and led her away, chattering, pausing only long enough to look back at Hermione, and mouth very seriously, “Pleasure and liberation, Hermione.” 

Hermione thought the fact that she did not wish conception upon her was very thoughtful. Clearly, Parvati had her suspicions. 

_Did Parvati Patil just quote Hindu tantras?_

_Did…_

_Oh, shush. Tantras aren’t about sex, and they’re really only symbolic rituals, even in wizarding Hindu communities. Hardly anyone does them, you both know that. Parvati simply enjoys learning about the esoteric._

_Whereas, you like the apply it._

_What can I say? I’m a practical girl._

Ron broke into the conversation, and it was decided that they would go and visit Hargid with Harry, who was not speaking to Hermione directly. She put the situation out of her mind. She couldn’t fix it automatically. She needed to collect information and be logical, present in the moments that might open the doors to change. 

Hagrid was not pleased to see them after tryouts. Hermione, despite her best efforts to explain, to reach him, to help him understand, was met by stoney silence. Even Harry was baffled out of his recurrent reluctance to even talk to her. It seemed that in moments of terror like this, Harry would still look to her for help. Hermione was glad of it. It meant that their foundation wasn’t totally destroyed. 

Hagrid, certainly, was not of the same frame of mind. He went so far as to be surly and bar them from his cottage. Even when they did make it inside, under Harry’s leadership, he was right annoyed that not one of them had signed up for Care of Magical Creatures. He missed George and he missed Fred, who had been the real enthusiasts for his classes, rather than just the man himself. 

“Hagrid,” Hermione admitted, “I miss them too. I’m sorry we smashed the time-turners, or we would all three be there. I promise.”

“I worry fer yeh, sommat awful, Hermione.” Hagrid admitted, moving from trio to triad as they got closer and closer to the heart of his fears. “Yer not meant ter be apart, not for long, and I know how glum you were after, well, Umbridge.”

“Hagrid, you are the sweetest friend.” Hermione asserted, rising to wrap an arm around him. 

Harry was scowling, but Ron nodded helpfully at Hagrid as Hermione assured him, “I promise you we’re all very well.”

He seemed to accept this, for he moved on very quickly to his next concern. Hermione’s heart broke that Hagrid truly had very few people upon whom he might rely for emotional support. Quickly, she glared at Harry, whose expression softened into something that looked like empathy. 

“Argus is upsetting the owls with all his scans,” Tears threatened, “And he keeps comin’ round with that scanner and telling me that my grubs are deceptive or some rot, and I’ve ’ _em ter feed ter Aragog.”_

_And without warning, he burst into tears._

_“Hagrid!” cried Hermione, leaping up, hurrying around the_

_table the long way to avoid the barrel of maggots, and putting an arm around his shaking shoulders. “What is it?”_

_“It’s . . . him . . .” gulped Hagrid, his beetle-black eyes stream- ing as he mopped his face with his apron. “It’s . . . Aragog. . . . I think he’s dyin’. . . . He got ill over the summer an’ he’s not gettin’ better. . . . I don’ know what I’ll do if he . . . if he . . . We’ve bin tergether so long. . . .”_

Hermione promised, “You know I could—”

She had barely begun to make the offer when a mug, heavy and thick, slammed on the table. Harry was glaring, but Hermione paid him no mind as she sent soothing energy Hagrid’s way, closing her eyes to manipulate visible magical pulses in the air. She did not see it as emotional manipulation, but rather support, even if it was soon to, according to Remus, going to be a battle tactic. 

Ron whispered something to Harry as Hermione calmed Hagrid. He refused her offer, but Hermione knew she was not going to let the matter be, not if it meant Aragog’s life in the balance. It seemed that this year was getting longer and longer with every single day that passed. 

* * *

Things only got worse.

Harry continued to use spells from that blasted book. Hermione knew full well that spells were neutral, and it was usage that mattered. However, there seemed to be a darker edge to Harry, a darker edge that was not resisted, one he revealed in his spell casting and subterfuge. 

He began _scheduling practices every time Slughorn had sent him a little, violet ribbon-adorned invitation_ to a Slug Club meeting. _This strategy meant that Ron was not left out, and they usually had a laugh with Ginny, imagining Hermione shut up with McLaggen and Zabini._ Ginny had confessed this, with apology, after Hermione had told her how difficult it was to keep her head down in those meetings. Information was power, and she was keen to go. 

The term crawled. The first two village weekends were cancelled for reasons unknown to her. It left her a great deal of time to think about what was going on with Harry. He had discovered so many spells, and had begun using them in taunting and malicious ways. _There had been a hex that caused toenails to grow alarmingly fast (he had tried this on Crabbe in the corridor, with very entertaining results); a jinx that glued the tongue to the roof of the mouth (which he had twice used, to general applause, on an un- suspecting Argus Filch)_ ; Most worrisome, he had discovered the Muffliato, meaning that he now had conversations she could not hear, for buzzing filled her ears like midges almost everywhere she went. 

Hermione was returning from her morning run around the lake when she heard Ron’s shout and felt a shiver of real fear for him down the bond, fears that echoed her own. She raced up the stairs to the boys dorm, and burst into the room as Neville was standing, having tumbled from his bed. Ron was touching down on his mattress, all of the blood in his face. 

Hermione’s hair crackled, as she saw the book and Harry, wand in his hand. “Harry! How could you?”

 _“It was a laugh!” said Ron,_ on his feet, worry on his face as he glanced between his two friends, and the rest of his dorms, holding up his hands placatingly. _“Just a laugh, Hermione, that’s all!”_

Hermione forced air to leave her lungs. She leaned into the presence of her boys in the bond, and tried to begin rationally, now that the fear was subsiding in her heart _. “Was this spell, by any chance, another one from that potion book of yours?”_

_Harry frowned at her.“Always jump to the worst conclusion, don’t you?”_

_“Was it?”_ Hermione tried again, gently. 

 _“Well…”_ Harry hedged, _“yeah, it was, but so what?”_

_“So you just decided to try out an unknown, handwritten incantation and see what would happen? Dangling people upside down by the ankle?” said Hermione. “Who puts their time and energy into making up spells like that?”_

“Fred and George, for one.” Harry replied, chin out and defiance on his face. “You forget, Hermione, that only you are devoted to them. As for me, I’m Dumbledore’s man.” 

Rage burned in Hermione’s soul. She thought of every night they had spent training to keep Harry safe, every spell they had learned to keep the Boy Who Lived alive, every bit of training that had taken their childhoods and every bit of practice that had stolen their innocence. Hermione watched the magic flare around them, her own anger and pain forcing the ironclad control on her abilities to slip. 

Somewhere around her, Neville was crying foul and Ron was looking at Harry with shock in his eyes. Ron knew how much her boys had given to Harry, how much of their spellwork had been deadly serious. 

 Hermione cleared her throat, and let the words well up from deep inside her. “Fred and George, were they here, would want me to tell you that you’re acting like an immature dung beetle, among other things that I’d never repeat.” Hermione smiled tightly, “But of course, I have no way of knowing for sure, so I’ll speak my own mind.”

Harry mumbled something. Hermione paid it no mind. 

Dean and Seamus were inching closer to her, as though there were going to be wands pulled. Nothing of the sort would happen here. She had vowed not to hurt Harry, as his friend, not as his protector. Were that he had made a similar promise to her. His very words had made her bleed like no spell ever could do. 

After a long second, Hermione educated Harry. “We’ve seen men use that very spell to float people, asleep, away from their beds and toward certain death. Tell me again what Fred and George would do in that situation. Tell me now what makes what you did just now different from the spell the attackers cast then.”

“They were bad men who misused their power.” Harry blurted, heatedly. “They use Dark magic!”

“Magic, Harry, is neither dark nor light. It’s not that simple. It’s people that make all the difference, and the choices they make in a single instant.” Hermione felt broken in that admission, because she saw such little space separating Harry’s attitudes and those of those he classed as his foe. 

In reverberating silence, as Ron called her name, Hermione went to dress and slipped down for breakfast, sitting with Luna to avoid a continuation of this confrontation. She did not want to fight. However, for the first time, she felt as though she was truly fighting for Harry in a way that she never had before, and for the first time, she felt she was losing to a foe she could not see. 

The cold of the walk to the village was hardly mitigated by the liberal use of warming charms. Ginny met Hermione as she crossed the lawns in front of Hogwarts before the gates. The cold was nearly unbearable and Hermione felt the threat of sleet and snow in the air. She darkly muttered about weather modification, but knew Nature needed to have her way. 

When Hermione expressed surprise that she was not with Dean, she grinned, “Do you really think I didn’t know?” She shrugged, a heavy motion underneath her heavy cloak and muffler, “He just needs a friend to talk to about his feelings, and I’m happy to be there for him, but…”

Hermione reached for a gloved hand, and looped her elbow through Ginny’s own. “There’s more to life than men, but if you ask me, there’s a certain young man waiting in the wings.”

“Dad’ll die if I bring home a pureblood, you know.” Ginny nearly laughed nervously, which told Hermione that she was actually and genuinely concerned about her parents and their reactions, the day she took the step to bring Neville home for dinner. 

“Gin, if they got over their sons finding a bonded wife in third year, I hardly think the son of a friend of the family is going to cause ripples.” Hermione advised, “At least Aunt Muriel is pleased.”

“Oh, and don’t we live to please the old bat.” Ginny deadpanned, pausing to adopt her Aunt’s frosty tones,  “‘At least you have hope, Arthur, that Ginerva will make a good marriage. Perhaps the Malfoy boy?’” 

Hermione laughed at the absurdity of that suggestion, the cold air causing her to cough, even as the bond thrummed with satisfaction and closeness. There was a pull, deep within her, that told her that perhaps, perhaps, she was about to met in the village. Her bondmates were resolutely silent on the subject, and had a great many shields in place. Hermione felt anticipation build in blood, and muttered hopefully that she hoped to find a steaming cup of chocolate waiting for her. It was freezing, even with magic.  

The wind increased, and they walked into it to make their way to the village. The only completely wizarding village stood resolutely, tired in the face of the war. _The road to the village was full of students bent double against the bitter wind._ There was a great crowd in front of Zonko’s, though the old, battered sign had been taken down and replaced. 

Hermione peered through the howling wind to watch a new sign rock back and forth in the wind. By the time her brain had processed the rings of dots and circles with the intertwined W’s, she was shoving her way through the crowd and shoving her way through the blocked door, making no bones about cutting a swath with Ginny right behind her, apologizing and advocating in Hermione’s stead, so singleminded was her focus. 

Hermione pulled off her gloves, and followed her instincts, which naturally led her to two young proprietors, who were passing out free tea to mark the grand opening of their satellite store in the village. Their mental connection zinged, and Hermione realized that they had not spent time in one another’s company outside of Remus’s training schedule for weeks. She was desperately glad to be with them without spells zinging around her or a headache storming her mental shields. 

Lee winked broadly, “Holding up the queue, there, Hermione.” Hermione jostled forward as a Ravenclaw took the next warm mug of tea. 

Her breath no longer frozen in her lungs, Hermione looked around the bustling shop and tilted her head. 

_Fred, you see, got his graduation gift in Diagon. This one’s mine…_

_We’d been negotiating with Zonko, and an unnamed buyer swooped in on us. Turns out that it was…_

_Remus. He’s such a Marauder, isn’t he?_

_I’m glad we’re not godfathers to their kids, is all I can say, because…_

Ginny nudged her hard, hissing, “You’re standing here staring at one another, not that it isn’t adorable, but it’s also creepy.” 

Hermione stood her ground easily, but took Ginny’s point. Fred and George were two steps ahead of her, literally and figuratively. It seemed that Zonko had not used the flat, nor had it ever been inhabited by felines, and so furnishing it had been a snap, largely because her boys had duplicated the furniture they had in London. 

The flat was larger, but not hugely so, and had something of a better kitchen. Hermione, desire for a bit of a snack gone, nestled herself on the sofa between her boys, and whispered, “I’m so worried about Harry.”

Fred smoothed back the loose hairs that escaped her bun in the wind. There really weren’t words. 

George pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth, a sure sign that he was getting ready to tell her something, and wanted to affirm their togetherness before he did. Hermione luxuriated in their unity, before flicking a glance to Fred, who was getting ready to speak on their unified behalf. “What?”

The door to the flat banged open, and a cheery voice called out, “Have you got anything to eat?” The noise from the shop below was again muffled by the thick oak door, “I’m staving!” 

“Why don’t you go raid Percy’s icebox?” Fred ventured, “I’m sure he’s got everything nicely labeled.”

“Complete with a sign that says, ‘Welcome, Ronald.’” George agreed, “Which you will note was not on the door you just opened. Curious, that.”

Ron was already rummaging through the largely empty icebox, “There’s not much here.” He picked up some roast, and sniffed, looking at the triad on the sofa, “This’ll do.” 

“Want me to make your sandwich?” Hermione asked, as Ron reached for the loaf of bread and other accompaniments. 

Ron looked up from the counter facing them and asked, “Would you?”

Hermione deadpanned, “No.” She watched his face fall, “But now that you’re here, why don’t you tell me why Harry hates me?” 

Ron colored. “It’s not you. He’s dealing with a lot from the War, and being that Dumbledore refuses to—” He broke off, his red face turning purple as he reached for a knife to cover his mortification. 

They were on their feet as George began, voice intent and low, “We’re not angry, Ron, but we can’t help if we aren’t informed.”

Hermione thought back over the bulk of the term. She thought of how infrequently she had seen Dumbledore. She had put it down to business with Snape, and increasing Order activity, but she reconsidered the idea. The images and moments flashed in her mind, which she allowed to freely flow through the bond. She pushed her final conclusion through the bond. 

_Dumbledore doesn’t want to see us._

Fred inhaled sharply. “I’m sorry you were put in the middle, Ron.” He looked at his little brother, “Stay here, in the flat or the shop, until we come and get you, do you understand? We’ve business with the Headmaster.” 

Ron protested. Hermione understood both his protestations and George’s intensity and Fred’s quick plan. They were trying to protect him, trying to keep him out of the line of fire. He hadn’t said anything, and Hermione didn’t want anyone to assume he had, least of all Harry or Dumbledore, who would likely make his life hell for it. 

But Ron would not be swayed. He stuffed his sandwich in his mouth as the rest of them donned their cloaks and outerwear. He understood, for her brushed up against Hermione as they were going down the stairs, and put his hand on her arm, “There’s a reason there’s a fleet of us, Hermione.”

They stood together because they were a family. Hermione wanted to say something, but they came downstairs to find that Harry had gone to the Three Broomsticks, and had found Tonks. 

He was talking in glum tones to his cousin, who for once was not glamoured. Fred and George exchanged a glance, wondering why she would not be using transformation magic. 

She grinned when she saw them, “Wotcher, you lot!” She lowered her voice conspiratorially, “I’m hiding in plain sight. No one expects  a mousy brunette to be Tonks, you know?” 

Hermione understood, and tried not to feel angry or hurt when Harry acknowledged Ron. At that moment _Harry drained the last drops in his bottle_ he _said, “Shall we call it a day and go back to school, then?”_

 _The others nodded; it had not been a fun trip and the weather was getting worse the longer they stayed._ He seemed curious as to why the twins were along, though he did not ask, and the biting wind made it hard to converse. As they were walking, Hermione blinked hard, to keep the sleet away. She looked back to pull her hood tighter around her, and her control around her second sight slipped. 

She gasped when the world became a riot of color. She felt the warmth of magical energy. In the corner of her vision, there was a flood of heavy, black energy. It pulsated, clashing with the other magic in the energy, magic that was alien but clung to a Katie’s friend Leanne’s magical signature. Hermione spun around quickly, just in time to see the movement _Leanne made to grab hold of the package Katie was holding; Katie tugged it back and the package fell to the ground._

Fred and George, faster and stronger, were already running back towards the girls, yelling to leave the package there just as Katie began to bend for it. Hermione realized that the swirl of clashing magic had been a clear tell for Imperius. 

Hermione took off running, and reached the gaggle of students just as George kicked the package out of the way, into a snowbank, and held Katie back. “Nobody move!” She screamed, over the wind. “We’ve got to break it!”

“Hermione!” Fred called, as Katie bit and clawed and kicked at George, her dear friend, “You’re not trained! We can’t—”

But she was, and she was doing it. _Katie creamed and screamed; Leanne started to scream too and_ Ron, in a show of maturity, tried to calm her. 

Hermione shoved her hands down on Katie, who was screaming and calling her all manner of foul names as she tried in vain to dive for the package. _She was twisting, writhing. Harry and Ron managed_ to help George hold _her but she was writhing so much they could hardly hold her. Instead they lowered her to the ground where she thrashed and screamed, apparently unable to recognize any of them._

 Hermione was sensate as her will, her mastery of earth magic, drove off the curse, chipping it away from Katie aura piece by piece. When it was done, Katie was limp in George’s arms, chattering from exhaustion and cold along with Hermione. 

They did not want Harry or Leanne to know they could bend the wards, so they walked quickly. She could not even leave Hogwarts without alerting Filch, for it seemed that she was being watched, and all she wanted to be was with her boys. Harry refused to turn over the necklace, but it was a moot point. Leanne seemed inclined to talk,  though Hermione heard little. Her body felt tight, aching, and she realized belatedly that she wasn’t moving under her own power. 

Her hip burned with magical power. Unlike when the boys touched her sigil, it did not feel good, did not feel pleasurable. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t find the air. It felt like static on her skin, overload. It felt like a huge magical burden, like there was too much magic, like she couldn’t let it to go, like it wouldn’t go back. 

Fred was murmuring against her, because she was safe, safe in his arms and George was just there, right next to them, because did she feel that, that was George right there, and she was safe, and she was going to be okay, just like Katie. “I know, I know.” 

Her head hurt so badly, the world was a riot of color and indistinct shape, swirling pattern, howling wind and falling sleet. Hermione was so nauseated, so nauseated. And then, the feeling was gone, pulled through the bond, which was radiating with power. With a sigh, Hermione allowed herself to fall into that strength, going totally limp as she fell into blackness.  

* * *

 

George prided himself on being quick to think and slow to act. People assumed that Fred was the impetuous one, and perhaps that was true, but only because George had learned to think through his actions in a way that Fred didn’t have to do. 

And right now, stripping Hermione’s snow-covered boots from her tiny feet, he wanted nothing more than to fly off the handle. He wanted to rail, to demand, to worry overtly. They were all in the hospital wing, where Katie was getting checked over. Hermione was next, but that didn’t mean that Poppy would find her with snow on her icy body. 

McGonagall was standing by the beds of the closed hospital wing, focused on Leanne. _Haltingly, and with many pauses while she attempted to control her crying, Leanne told Professor McGonagall how Katie had gone to the bathroom in the Three Broomsticks and returned holding the unmarked package, how Katie had seemed a little odd, and how they had argued about the advisability of agreeing to deliver unknown objects, the argument culminating in the tussle over the parcel, which tore open. At this point, Leanne was so overcome, there was no getting another word out of her._

George noted, with a grim look to Fred, who had made short work of tying Hermione’s hair back, freeing it from the myriad of pins she used, that of course Harry would be the one to explain everything. _“—and then began to scream, and collapsed. Professor, can I see Professor Dumbledore, please?”_

_“The headmaster is away until Monday, Potter,” said Professor McGonagall, looking surprised._

_“Away?” Harry repeated angrily._

_“Yes, Potter, away!” said Professor McGonagall tartly. “But anything you have to say about this horrible business can be said to me, I’m sure!”_

_For a split second, Harry hesitated._

George had had enough. There was not time to hesitate. Katie would be fine, or was in a better state than Hermione. He could not feel her in the bond, and Fred was going spare shoving more and more of himself down the bond to be closer to the spark that was Hermione in their souls. 

He harshly declared, “We can barely feel her, and you’re standing there—”

Fred glanced at McGonagall. She got the message. Her face impassive, she sent Leanne on her way. Pomfrey came bustling over, and tried to shove them out of the way. It was Fred who had the courage to say what George could not vocalize, “If we let go, we might not get her back.”

Pomfrey clucked, remembering well their bedside vigil during Hermione’s second year. “Now boys…”

“It’s never been like this…”  George said only to Fred, never mind who was listening. “To you, does it feel like a—”

“Of course not.” Fred replied, jerking quickly when he realized that Hermione had been muttering about her hip burning. They’d thought it was the cold, but the echoes of that pain hadn’t faded. 

“Ron, go with Harry. Stay together.” George decided. Everyone thought that it was Fred who blazed the trail for them, but it was George who held them steady, who George who was going to get Fred and Hermione through this, together and whole, no matter what.

Ron, sensibly, left with Harry, clearing out before Harry could protest anew. Carefully, George felt along Hermione’s hip, which was burning with magic. Driven by instinct, he stayed away from touching the blistering magic of her sigil. Ordinarily, they’d draw it out. That was their jobs, but this…

Poppy had followed this action, and had isolated Hermione’s hip from her body with a sheet and manually sliced the seam of her very warm skirts and wool-lined tights. Poppy cried out, for the magic against Hermione’s pale skin radiated with power, with transcendence. Were it not for the pain and the sense of loss, it would have been intoxicating beyond belief. Men and women of unfathomable power had sold their souls, bartered and risked everything, for one one-millionth of  the comparatively small bit of magic that radiated around them.  

They both knew that Minerva and Poppy were not unaffected. This moment, this right now, was as close as they would ever get to Source, to the Infinity that was both the blessing and the curse of triads and others like them. The room was thick with magic, magic so elemental that some would have termed it elemental or perhaps even so spiritual it was erotic. Right now, all George could feel was his brother’s terror, his own pain, and the black void that was Hermione. 

Remus burst into the room, “The necklace isn’t cursed…” He skittered to a stop by McGonagall, noting without shock that the triad he knew and loved was once again laid low, “Of course it isn’t.” 

Remus, due to proximity and his otherness, was not particularly affected by the magic that pulsed in the air. He had been training them for so long that he could be very objective and nuanced about his perceptions and instructions. George wished with all his might that Hermione was there, so that she might tell them what colors it was, so that they might tell her how much they loved her, how much he regretted chiding her to keep her away from Katie. 

They needed to draw the magic out, return it to the earth. The best way to do this would have been touch, but that wasn’t an option right now, for a multitude of reasons, the chief one being that Hermione was cold, in pain, unconscious and scant centimeters from death, and nothing about that made touching her permissible. They needed to draw it out, using her own magic, magic that was overwhelming the bond to the point that it felt aching and tight. 

_It was one curse._

_It shouldn’t have…_

They collectively ran through everything they knew. Their minds whirled. They weren’t perfectly matched for the brightest witch of the age for no reason, after all. The conclusion was a complicated one, fraught with risk, but it had to be done. It would be done, come hell, high water, or Dumbledore’s wrath. 

They needed to drop the wards.

It was the ambient wards of Hogwarts blocking their innate connections to the earth. There was no way to go outside. With focus and intention, Fred took George’s hands, and placed Hermione’s between them, lacing their fingers around hers. They had to work together to drop the wards with the amount of pain they were in, and with the amount of work they had to do to keep Poppy out, even with Remus’s help. 

The wards fell, and they felt the energy explode around them as they visualized every bit of magic that was muddied by the curse or no longer served their highest good returning to the magic of the earth to be cleansed and waiting for use.

George panted, shutting his eyes tight against the warmth and the brightness of the magic as it coalesced for one pinnacle of a moment and fell into the earth, going deep into the soil and the atmosphere to be cleansed. 

In the reverberating silence, Fred drew the sheet over Hermione. The flare of the bond was slight, but magnificent. _Crooks. Door._

Fred laughed, unshed tears bright in his eyes. George’s heart clenched. She was with them, and they were well. With her, they could survive anything. At a nod, Remus dropped the privacy wards he’d erected, and they heard the distinct yowling of a displeased feline who wanted his mummy. 

With a twitch of magic, the door blew open and Crooks padded inside, and hopped gently on the bed between them as if to greet his mother’s minions, and declare that an expert had arrived. Ever so gingerly, the bushy animal curled up against Hermione and began to purr loudly. He butted at Fred, who carefully placed Hermione’s hand in his fur. In thanks, Crooks licked the tattoo on the inside of Fred’s wrist.

George gave a shocked laugh when a question reverberated in their minds. _Tattoos? Been having fun while I’m at school, have you?_

Before she could indignantly continue, Hermione was mentally silent, but present. She had fallen asleep mid-thought, and it was the most wonderful moment of George’s life, thus far. She was alive. She was alive. 

Beyond that, glancing around after checking in with one another, they seemed to have shocked Poppy, who was covering her mouth with her hand. Fred offered, “She’ll be alright. Bit of a hard drop, that.” He continued, patting Crooksy, “Sorry about the cat. He’s not likely to leave.”

Remus sighed. “The wards are alright?”

“Those?” George asked, “Child’s play after the Imperius.” 

“Well, I hardly think now the time for jokes!” McGonagall cried, though there was clearly relief in her voice. “I’m going to be seeing you here from now on, aren’t I?”

Alumni had castle privileges on game days, and on Sundays, for visiting, not that many students took people up on the offer. Fred sighed, and batted his eyelashes. “Minerva, our heart, we’re so glad to know that you’ve pined for us.”

George smoothed back Hermione’s hair. “You’re never far from our thoughts, Goddess of Wisdom.”

“I’d give you detention if I could.” She returned without heat. 

“One day, Minnie.” Fred winked, “You won’t know what bowled you over.” 

“A bludger, hopefully.” She swanned out of the room, pulling Poppy with her. 

* * *

Hermione was out of the hospital wing within ten hours. She was kept overnight, no matter what she said to the contrary, though in the end she closed her mouth because she was given a night with her boys. She felt great, really, but she should not have admitted it, as Remus was keen to use that energy to lecture. 

Hermione turned a deaf ear to it. Remus, in returned, doubled their training schedule. Where he found five times a week to oversee training Hermione wasn’t sure, but he found it just the same. The end of the term raced upon them. Hermione, increasingly, spent time thinking about why the headmaster did not want to see them. 

McGonagall knew enough about it to hush up their dropping of the wards somehow. She knew enough to know that Dumbledore’s anger had spilled over into her education, which was so sad that it did not bear consideration. She decided that she needed to speak to Dumbledore, but she could not get to him in the Great Hall. Hermione began tracking Harry’s meetings with Dumbledore, as he wasn’t as secretive and careful as he thought, with the idea that she would follow him in and have it out then. 

Following Harry was a bit of a challenge, _as large groups of girls tended to converge underneath the mistletoe bunches every time Harry went past, which caused blockages in the corridors._ The blockages delayed Hermione, because she could not be obvious about her goals. 

She had no  chance of getting past the Gargoyle, and so she made a hasty advance into the passageway that wound around the tower, one she and George and Fred had explored long ago. There was a small grate in the wall just behind Dumbledore’s desk, and Hermione ignored the claustrophobia that was quickly settling about her. The very narrow escape tunnels had been much larger years ago, surely. 

 Dumbledore smiled, after a bit of banal socialization. _“Well, I have decided that it is time, now that you know what prompted Lord Voldemort to try and kill you fifteen years ago, for you to be given certain information.”_ He continued, looking at Harry archly, “I trust, you continue to understand, that this information is highly confidential.”

This, then, was an old warning. Harry was being deliberately warned, ordered, told to keep himself isolated from the very people who could help him. “I know.” 

Hermione was drawn, instantly, to Dumbledore’s hand, and the ornate ring upon his limp finger. The whole of his hand was withered and black, with streaks of a sickly blackness heading up his arm until it disappeared into his robes. Hermione steadied herself within the bond, leaned into her boys energetically for a long moment, and tugged sharply on the bond. Magic flared to life around her. The dizzying array of light and color was marred by a blackness that she had never before seen, but knew by energetic resonance, by feeling, well. Dumbledore had been injured horcrux hunting. 

The very ring on his hand was a horcrux. He thought to wear it before all and sundry like a badge of honor, it seemed. 

_Well, well, well…_

_He’s clearly cutting us out. Training Harry, hunting horcruxes…_

_Do you suppose Dumbledore’s been holding out on us and is in a triad with Snape and Filtch?_

“Shut up!” Hermione hissed, aloud, as the conversation hurried along in her brain, as she tried to put two and two together. The men in the office before her paused. Hermione, thankful that a portrait could be blamed, got out of the passageway. Whatever Dumbledore intended to reveal to Harry about Tom Riddle was insignificant in the face of what she knew now. She knew enough about him to forgo this next bit of the conversation. 

Hermione raced to the Room of Requirement. She demanded an open and untraceable floo, and found that by the time she entered the waiting common room, both Fred and George had come tumbling out of the fireplace. 

Hermione couldn’t help it. Glad for the soundproof room, she cried, “He’s committed suicide so that he can die as a martyr!” 

As the last word left her mouth, fury raced through her. She was too enraged to even cry. How could he do this, knowing as he did that taking care of that ring would have been nothing to her, to them? How could Dumbledore hate them so much that he’d rather risk dying to go his own way? 

“He must know…” Hermione could not believe that this man, a man she knew to be as human as anyone else, thought to leave the world during this war, when his grounding in history and his standing in society was a beacon of light and hope. 

Hermione’s resolve grew as she saw the light in two pairs of blue eyes. She agreed with them. She knew they could not make the same mistakes. They had to rise above, and make different choices. After a long moment, Hermione gave her assent. She knew what had to be done. “I’ll go.” 

Hermione pasted a bland look on her face, and headed to Remus Lupin’s office. When she tapped on the door, he rose without speaking and followed her to the Room of Requirement. 

When they returned, Fred had already begun to draw a huge web of information and conclusions they had drawn over the last few weeks. George had begun to pull out reams and reams and yet more of paper that was research. Too much was dangerous to put in writing, but they used cyphers and codes to record what they might, in the hopes that anyone who might have to take up  this mantle in their steads would not be so disadvantaged. 

Remus helped himself to a cup of tea, and sighed. “I suppose you’ve found out what my son’s been keeping from Pads and I.”

“Yes.” Hermione began, realizing for the millionth time just how difficult Remus’s position truly was in this moment, “I have to warn you…”

George stepped up, asserting that he needed to be told, and no matter of preparation could help him. or ease this for him. “Harry’s Dumbledore’s man, that much is clear.” 

Remus looked haggard and grey as his eyes grew shuttered. “You know, usually teenage boys resent their parents over girls, music, and brooms, not meddling old men bent on winning a war he’s ill prepared to fight.”

“He doesn’t plan to survive it.” Fred asserted, “He doesn’t plan for either he or Harry to survive.” 

Hermione gasped. “Fred! He didn’t say—”

Fred’s heart shattered as he quoted Dumbledore’s words from earlier that evening, less than an hour past, “‘Our fates are intertwined.’” Fred swallowed, “For some reason, he knows that he’s leading Harry like a lamb to the slaughter, filling his head with tales of love and—and—”

“Complacency.” George broke in, “It’s mental…”

“Abuse.” Remus bit out, “It’s abuse. My son’s been withdrawing from his family, from people who love him, all year, because a man I trusted with his care has been filling his head. It could have gotten him killed!”

Hermione did not say that it nearly had done, with Katie’s cursed necklace. Harry’s hard stare and his harsh words rang in her ears, _“I’m Dumbledore’s man, Hermione.”_

* * *

 

Hermione begged Remus for time to talk to Harry, time to help him see that there was only one side in this war, the side of the Light, and that they could all come together. She thought the Slug Club party would have been perfect, and they were meant to go together at least overtly, but at the last minute, Harry declared he was going with Luna. 

Unfortunately, he did so in the Great Hall, which meant that McLaggen wasted no time in securing her assent to accompany her. Of course, Fred and George were furious at Harry, and at Ron, who was so wrapped up in Lavender’s embrace that he failed to see to the end of his nose, unless it was bumping up against his beloved’s own beak. 

Hermione, was therefore, not surprised to see two of their community’s most promising inventors and businessmen mingling in the crowds in Slughorn’s office. Having never gone to the Yule Ball together, Hermione was absurdly glad to have worn the new dress and robes her mother insist she buy. Under the appreciation of their gazes, she felt beautiful. 

Of course, her appreciation of the moment was rather ruined by the limpet attached to her side. His hand seemed to drop lower and lower, leaving Hermione to haul it off with a winsome smile. It was best to play stupid with someone so stupid. Luckily, Cormac was only too happy to talk quidditch and investing with Fred and George. He stopped frequently to condescendingly explain basic investment concepts to her, leaving her laughing internally. Her boys were not so amused, and pointedly told McLaggen that Hermione did all of their investing, and that they would be lost without her input. 

Cormac seemed stunned when Fred seized the moment, “Speaking of, there’s a bit of stock we’ve been meaning to run by you, Hermione. You wouldn’t mind coming with us?”

George did his best to look contrite as he apologized to both Hermione and McLaggen. It was all they could do to leave the party sedately. The halls were deserted, and Hermione tilted her head, “Well, gentleman.” Hermione was quite amused by their thoughts, “You have me, alone, in Hogwarts, with all of the teachers distracted. What, pray tell, do you intend to do?”  

“Oh, Kitten.” Fred grinned, “We’ve waited for this day.”

“Planned it, even.” George agreed, jovially. 

Hermione followed along behind him, laughing at the magic of the moment, magic that had nothing to do with their abilities and everything to do with togetherness. As one, they crept into the library, and magically moved several tables in the center of the library. The space they cleared was right above the single skylight in the room. 

Hermione shivered with anticipation. Her skin tingled with haste, and her mind thrummed with the possibility of being caught during this very daring attempt. Carefully, she shucked her robes, nibbling on her bottom lip. “You’re sure you’ve both read…”

They nodded, equally intent, and so Hermione gave herself over to the plan. They worked quickly, stacking books through complicated spellwork. Hermione was very glad for her ability to levitate, as it allowed her to go and inspect the upper reaches of the very festive Christmas tree they were building out of the books in the library. Hermione had never been so enthused with a prank in her entire life. The books were charmed to float back to their original spaces after Boxing Day, and if anyone needed a text in the interim, they could tap the tree, and the required book would float down. 

With magic, something that would take hours, took less than a half-hour. It was clandestine and jovial, the sort of thing they might have done at thirteen. There would be other Christmases at Hogwarts to check boxes off that list the boys didn’t think she knew about, and there was nothing she would have rather been doing. The tree took shape rather quickly, and Hermione was sorry to see the moments pass. These were the memories she would carry in her heart, always. One day, the war would be a memory of the past, but these moments would be the stories she told their children, the jokes they laughed about when they were old and grey. 

It was a near thing, in the end. They were finishing the last adjustments when they heard footsteps coming from the back of the library. Knowing full well that it was likely Madam Pince, they took off running, soft-footed, through the library and out into the hall near the stairs, laughter bubbling up in their souls. 

In like fashion, they laughed and joked their way back to Slughorn’s office. Before they turned the corner, Hermione took it upon herself to note, “I had a nice time.” 

 Of course, it was made all the nicer by their convenient location near an alcove, which was, as it turned out, the location of a sprig of mistletoe. She swore up and down that she had not planned such a stroke of luck, but who was she to question fate, really? Hermione stumbled gently out of the alcove a little while later, trying desperately to fix her hair. In the end, she shoved pins in haphazardly, and hoped for the best. 

She slipped into the party first, and avoided McLaggen as he waited, boldly, under a similar sprig of mistletoe. Hermione felt relief when she bumped into Harry, who was clearly avoiding someone of his own. 

_“Hermione! Hermione!”_

_“Harry! There you are, thank goodness! Hi, Luna!”_

_“What’s happened to you?” asked Harry, for Hermione looked distinctly disheveled, rather as though she had just fought her way out of a thicket of Devil’s Snare._

_“Oh, I’ve just escaped — I mean, I’ve just left Cormac,” she said. “Under the mistletoe,” she added in explanation, as Harry continued to look questioningly at her._

_“Serves you right for coming with him,” he told her severely,_ as though she had been kissing the man in question. The idea was laughable, of course, but it told her just how much he had been listening to Dumbledore. 

 _“I thought he’d annoy Ron most,” said Hermione dispassionately,_ trying to highlight that she had only accepted the invitation because Ron hated McLaggen and she’d needed to save face, knowing full well that her boys would be there, and there would be no date _. “I debated for a while about Zacharias Smith, but I thought, on the whole —”_

_“You considered Smith?” said Harry, revolted._

_“Yes, I did, and I’m starting to wish I’d chosen him, McLaggen makes Grawp look a gentleman. Let’s go this way, we’ll be able to see him coming, he’s so tall. . . .”_

Hermione led Harry away, Luna having spied a Nargle in the mistletoe. “I need to talk to you. The necklace, Harry—”

“Look, I don’t care what you and Papa think—” Harry declared, “It’s Christmas, Hermione. Let’s just let it be Christmas. There is nothing to worry about. It’s in the bag, okay?”

“But I can help Dumbledore—” Of course she was willing to help him, to do what she might to save him. She did not want him to die, and she knew his life was in the balance. She felt shaken and shocked to her core.   

With that, he swanned off. When her confusion passed, Hermione realized that he had been talking about the war in dismissive terms, like it was nothing, like the things they had already done were mere blips on the radar. Hermione, shoving away her anger, made her way to the punch bowl, and, with a flick of her fingers, turned the weak punch into the hard stuff once it had been allotted to her in a cup. 

Hermione found a corner, and lost herself in angry thoughts. Of course, she wasn’t alone for long. George swanned over, and tempted her with a plate of biscuits. Hermione shook her head, “I’m not hungry.” 

Fred, in the meantime, plucked her glass from her hand, and drained it smoothly. He grimaced gently, “Fruity stuff, really?” He leaned against the wall, and took a biscuit, “It’s time for Harry to wake up. He’s seeing what he wants to see, and that helps Dumbledore, but the truth is…”

“We’re running out of time, aren’t we?” George allowed, as though they were talking about the weather or her shitty taste in libations. 

Hermione thought back to calculations she had never shared with anyone else but the two men who were bracketing her like a windbreak in the storm that was their lives. “Weeks. A couple of months if we’re lucky.”

Hermione prayed their luck would hold out. It seemed, even with their abilities, the only thing they truly had going for them. 


	17. 1996-1997 School Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. 
> 
> Be the change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This seems oddly apropos to what's going on in America right now, but I wrote it months ago.
> 
> Edit to add: Isis is an Egyptian goddess, pronounced ee-set, not ISIS/ISIL/Daesh the terror group. She is the goddess who guards the underworld, balances heaven and earth, controls magic, among other things. She was the Queen of Heaven and the Queen of the Underworld, with her husband Osiris. It is she who creates and controls the throne of the ancient pharaohs. 
> 
> Please keep this in mind as you read. The Grangers are not terrorists, nor are they praising terrorism. At this point in '97, ISIS would have not been on their radar as it was not regarded as active until 2013.

Hermione prided herself on her memory. Well, not only her memory, but also George’s, who was amazing at interpersonal detail, and Fred’s own, who watched the surrounding events in any given situation with clarity. If she relied on their memories in her own weak spots, it was only sensible. Hermione hauled Croosky and her suitcase down the windy street toward the shop, blowing inside on a gust of wind that shook the windowpanes, right in front of the PocketPal display. 

Right now, her memories were focused entirely on that action figure line. Hermione thought they were very clever. She didn’t remember how they came about, only that she had woken up one morning knowing that her boys had been in their workshop for hours. Within seventy-two hours, they had developed a small action figure that, with spell work, could be animated to act and speak like the person they were meant to be, provided the caster knew the person. If they did not, the doll’s activities and inclinations would be based on basic actions that came with the spell in the box. 

So, if someone who knew Ron bought that doll, he would act like, well, Ron, right down to the little things that made him so lovable. But if a random person bought the Ron doll, he would fly around on his small broom, and skitter around. When you put the Ron doll with the Harry doll, they faffed about and got up to hijinks.

Add in the Hermione doll, and she would give them advice on how to best pull something off, and haul them back from insanity. If someone she knew bought the doll, she offered helpful advice and gave eloquent political discourses, but did not engage in pranking. The doll was often found in Crooksy’s Kitty-Container, rubbing his ears on demand. 

The dolls came automatically with child-safe parameters because there were a lot of sick fans in the world who frequently assumed disgusting things about the Golden Trio and their antics. Hermione was glad that the Fred and George dolls had stopped whinging that the Hermione doll be purchased along with them, though they were reluctant to get in a box unless the purchaser was also buying the Hermione doll, which cleverly came with a potions kit. 

Hermione was happy to note that, when the Hermione dolls encountered the Fred and George avatars, they explored whatever environment they were in, and got up to harmless pranks and organized their spaces. In the testing phase, the Hermione doll was able to organize little beads into motivational sayings. Several came with her as part of the spell-sheet for activation in the box. 

What Hermione did not remember was the day the boys had realized that the spells for making the dolls could be a tool in their toolbox for fighting the War. They had no way of knowing how they would use them at the time, but they were dead useful at decoys in skirmishes and also in laying false trails. Hermione had spent weeks working on ways to make them animated for a short time, with various spells and activation phrases. She had also worked on the doll being able to converse and respond in given situations, but honestly, Fred and George had more artistic flair for those endeavors. 

She only wished she knew where the idea had come from, as it was a good one for the War, even if the Boy who Lived was annoyed that he had essentially been turned into a magical Barbie doll. In the New Year, the twins were going to introduce Hogwarts professors. Hagrid was tickled pink, and had sewed the apron for his prototype. They’d not got around to telling McGonagall about the launch, as yet. 

The door blew shut behind her with a push of her magic, leaving the candles to flicker happily. They were expected in Crawley any moment. Hermione planned to make short work of rounding up her boys and getting the show on the road. The sooner she got away from the oppressive atmosphere of Hogwarts, the better. 

“You look festive.” Hermione remarked, to Fred, who was wearing reindeer ears on an alice band. He winked, and one of the antlers magically waved, comically. 

“It’s part of the muggle inspired holiday line.” Fred allowed, the antlers wiggling suggestively as their lips met. “George’s brainchild.”

“Where is he, anyway?” Hermione asked, smoothing down the collar of Fred’s coat. 

“He’s losing his hair.” Fred sniggered, “And so he spends all his time in the toilets, bemoaning my good looks and his premature aging.”

George, of course, was not losing his hair. He came into the room, lugging a suitcase. “Leave me to do the heavy lifting and then spread lies. Merry Christmas, huh?”

Fred laughed, Hermione smoothed George’s pout away with a kiss, and advised, “You should get some antlers for your balding spot.”

George huffed. Hermione tugged on her gloves as they approached the floo, vowing that she found such things very distinguished indeed. 

There was little more time for banter as they came out of the network into the cosy living room she had grown up in, and found Mum waiting for them. She was full of joy and happiness at seeing them, even as she allowed, “Not that I don’t see both of you, of course.”

“What am I missing?” Hermione asked, feeling shields go up as her boys made some jokes about Mum’s cooking, “Why does everyone do things while I’m shut up at school?”

Mum sighed, “Bunny girl.”

Though both of her boys called up the memory that supported their point of view, Hermione was not entirely satisfied with being brushed off. Fred and George had been very pleased about their tattoos, a miniature bonding sigil on their dominant wrists.  

Hermione understood that they felt it an act of equality. It was hardly equitable that her skin, her body, would be marked and changed by the bond. Though they could not imbue their tattoos with magical properties in the same fashion, it was the act of seeking justice that they found personally meaningful. 

Hermione wasn’t going to turn her nose up at that, though she did wish she had been able to come along and make sure it didn’t hurt too badly. She was glad they’d had each other for that, at least. She did respect their intentions and the sentiment behind them, as well as their detailed recreations, though with some small differences, so as not to reveal the actual bonding mark too casually. 

Hermione moved into the warm kitchen, and helped to set the table. She was well aware that her parents were up to something with the war efforts, and she had every suspicion that George and Fred were involved. She wanted to know more, but she was self-aware enough to know that they would tell her when they were ready. 

She had quite enough to handle, what with being the only one who could conduct research into Riddle’s background at school. Remus occasionally smuggled her books on horcruxes, and even though they made her vomit the first time she had read them, she was glad to be doing her part. 

“Hermione…” George revealed, like a schoolboy who knew where his Christmas presents were hidden, _(Bedroom closet? No.)_ “Fred and I have something to show you after dinner.”

Hermione’s interest was piqued. “Did you go and see about that rare book at Akateeminen Kirjakauppa?” 

He shook his head, and put a gravy bowl down on the table. Luckily, it was mushroom, and thereby vegetarian. Hermione’s hunger made itself known, and she almost did not hear Fred when he interjected from the other room, “We’ve gotten our driving licenses.”

Hermione gave a bleat of laughter, “Without magic?”

They were deeply offended, to which Hermione offered hasty apologies. They were accepted, but the whole of it did not erase her questions as they sat down to dinner with her parents. As they discussed the whole thing, Hermione could not help but wonder, “Why learn to drive?”

“It’s fun.” Fred shrugged, “Like flying.” 

George agreed, sticking his fork in his potatoes, “And it’s a valuable muggle skill.” 

They shared a knowing look, and jointly ventured. It was a tactic designed to entirely annoy her, as were their stupid matching jumpers. Really, the whole matchy-matchy thing did not work for them. “Interested in learning?”

“No. I hate operating brooms, and I’m sure the same would go for a car.” Hermione was certain of that fact, even as she picked up a stray thought dancing through the bond, unformed but there, all the same, “What do you mean you think we should buy a car? Where do you propose we put it, the front room?”

“Case you forgot, we can shrink things.” Fred noted, “And besides, it would be a good investment.”

Dad nodded, pouring himself something more to drink from a jug on the table, “Provided you get a solid, sensible car. We’ve always had good luck with the Mercedes.”

“We are not buying your Mercedes, Daddy, so you can upgrade.” Hermione was quite firm on this. Her father’s hobbies were his own, and she absolutely refused to buy his old car so that it could stay in the family and he could be sure it went to a good family. 

Ignoring his wheedling and protests,  Hermione muttered that Padma and Parvati’s father had a sensible hobby. He played in a Beatles cover band. 

“What is it that you’re not telling me?” Hermione asked, knowing that there was more at stake here, just from the intensity and worry and hope and projected calmness making their way through the bond from the respective sources. 

“It may happen, Hermione, that we’ll have to go to ground.” George posited, “And if that happens, we cannot afford to be unprepared.”

Hermione glanced at her parents. Should they be talking about their plans in front of them like this? What if doing so put them in danger? Making up her mind, she allowed, “If you think it’s best, we’ll look at the books over holiday.” 

“Speaking of, do you still have your muggle bank account, Hermione?” Mum asked, glancing at them with a telling light in her eyes, “Were I you, I’d go and make sure that’s in order while you’re home, and make sure you have new bank cards.” 

Hermione thought that sensible advice. And so, the first day of the holiday break they spent traversing the muggle community that was their part-time home. They ran into a bit of trouble at the bank, putting both Fred and George on the account in place of her parents, who had once set up the account. 

Hermione rejected outright the idea of changing her name. She was Hermione Jane Granger, and the world had quite enough Weasleys, but perhaps not enough Grangers. Still, perhaps they should do something about the legality of their bond. She knew, of course, that it would be a simple enough to charm the certificate to read correctly and be perfectly acceptable to whomever was reading. If she had practiced such spell work, she would never tell. It felt too much like drawing hearts in her Filofax. 

They were walking down the pavement, snow crunching under their feet as they came to a stop to wait for the man to cross as she decided this, and Hermione looked between the boys. “What?”

Fred sniffed away a faux-tear, and clapped George on the shoulder. “I do believe, brother, that our dreams have been answered.”

George tilted his head, “Not exactly the proposal of my dreams, I’ll have you know, but I am getting on in age.”

“Tick tock, George.” Fred agreed, “I know. I wake up in my sleep, and I wonder, ‘When?’ you know. Can’t be too picky, these days.”

Hermione worked hard not to laugh. Tick tock, indeed. If they were lucky, lucky, they wouldn’t end up surpassing Molly in her industriousness. Still, the idea that they thought her musings over legal documentation a proposal was indeed laughable. 

“Indeed, I do, Freddie.” George agreed, promptly, and rather pompously, “Wait until we tell Mum that we’re off the shelf.”

“I’d pay to see Fleur’s face.” Hermione interjected, quite knocking them off their feet. She was quite prepared to join in on a joke, but seriously, seeing Fleur’s face would be almost worth the fuss of a wedding. 

She forced herself to sigh, “However, that was not a proposal. I don’t do that.”

“Some feminist you are.” Fred retorted, “Why can’t you invert gender roles and give me the proposal of my dreams?”

She would, if she thought for one second that it was something he actually wanted. Call her incongruent, but she did rather hold out hope of being asked. She had her suspicions, unconfirmed though they were, that her parents had already been consulted. “Who was it that told me that if you want something, all you have to do is ask?”

“Ron.” George hastened, leaving Fred to glower gently at him. 

“I blame you.” Fred declared, “I blame you, George.”

George shoved Fred, and they continued on homeward. Behind a mental wall at least three miles thick, she jumped for joy. The waters were again being tested, and this time, Harry Bloody Potter was not going to mess up her proposal. 

* * *

The note came from Percy on Christmas Eve. He could not come to dinner, it seemed, for there was something going on at work. In code, he elaborated. The Minister would be arriving tomorrow to quiz Harry about the triad, though her bonded’s identities had never been confirmed. 

Desperately, Hermione shoved away the worry that he might sell them out. Harry, though he was angry at her, would never, never, do anything like that, never in a million years. Still, she hid in the loo at the Burrow for a long moment before pasting a smile on and joining the throngs in the kitchen. 

She sent the note up in flames before she flushed the toilet, dropping the ashes into the disappearing water. She returned to the bowl bread dough that had been rising, kneaded it magically, and took up a sprout knife to get the task done. Magically peeling sprouts was a bad idea all around, no matter Ron’s suppositions. 

“Hermione?” said Fred’s voice as the twins entered the kitchen. “Have you seen my gloves? _Aaah, George, look at this. They’re using knives and everything. Bless them.”_

 _“I’ll be seventeen in two and a bit months’ time,” said Ron grumpily,_ ducking to avoid the gloves flying at his brother’s head from where he left them in his coat, _“and then I’ll be able to do it by magic!”_

_“But meanwhile,” said George, sitting down at the kitchen table and putting his feet up on it, “we can enjoy watching you demonstrate the correct use of a— whoops-a-daisy!”_

_“You made me do that!” said Ron angrily, sucking his cut thumb. “You wait, when I’m seventeen—”_

_“I’m sure you’ll dazzle us all with hitherto unsuspected magical skills,” yawned Fred._

Hermione continued working through the sprouts, peeling six for every one and half Ron managed. Her father would call him sloppy and demand he move faster, but given that he had to heal five cuts today, Hermione thought he was making progress insofar as his abilities. 

_“And speaking of hitherto unsuspected skills, Ronald,” said George, “what is this we hear from Ginny about you and a young lady called — unless our information is faulty — Lavender Brown?”_

“I said exactly nothing.” Hermione vowed, knowing that words hadn’t been needed. Still, it was nice they weren’t ratting her out as a source. 

R _on turned a little pink, but did not look displeased as he turned back to the sprouts. “Mind your own business.”_

_“What a snappy retort,” said Fred. “I really don’t know how you think of them. No, what we wanted to know was…how did it happen?”_

Glancing at Hermione, Ron asked, _“What d’you mean?”_

It was clear that Ron did not want his brothers to know that Lavender had taken the lead on things. It was perfectly alright to be shy, to be gentlemanly in that fashion, but nothing about her boys were, well, retiring or even the least unclear about what they wanted, and how they wanted it, either then or now. 

Hermione shifted, and glared pointedly. This wasn’t Cluedo, and Hermione in the bedroom with the silencing charms was not in the envelope for today. The aforementioned suggestions faded from her mind as she applied herself resolutely to sprouts. Sprouts were evil, difficult to peel, but more economical than the self-peeling type, which always tasted a bit sandy. 

George asked, _“Did she have an accident or something?”_

 _“What?”_ Ron and Hermione spoke together. 

Ron threw the knife. Hermione was lucky she reigned in the reflex to drive her knee into his back and drop him to the floor, likely severing his spinal column in the process. Training was a hard thing to overcome, but she did it, even though it was a near thing. What sort of idiot threw knives at a trained hitwizard, knowing the the other two such trained beings were continually on high alert? 

Hermione sighed, glad that she had not moved, or given in to silly overreaction. It was just one knife, for Merlin’s sake. It would not do to show Ron just how finely honed his siblings were, and she found that she was glad he could still joke with weapons. Even, Hermione thought wryly, if that weapon was only a sprout knife.  

 _“Well, how did she sustain such extensive brain damage?”_ Fred asked, eyeing the knife that was coming his way, _“Careful, now!”_

_Mrs. Weasley entered the room just in time to see Ron throw the sprout knife at Fred, who had turned it into a paper airplane with one lazy flick of his wand._

_“Ron!” she said furiously. “Don’t you ever let me see you throwing knives again!”_

_“I won’t,” said Ron, “let you see,” he added under his breath, as he turned back to the sprout mountain._

_“Fred, George, I’m sorry, dears, but Remus is arriving tonight, so Bill will have to squeeze in with you two.”_

_“No problem,” said George._ “As we’re heading off to the Grangers. They’ve not got police on Christmas.”

Molly nodded, _“Then, as Charlie isn’t coming home, that just leaves Harry and Ron in the attic, and if Fleur shares with Ginny —”_

 _“— that’ll make Ginny’s Christmas —” muttered Fred._ “Why doesn’t she take our room? Ginny, that is. I don’t know anybody but Ronnie who’d fancy—”

“Fred!” Hermione hissed, only to be rewarded with a scandalous wink. 

 _Fleur in his bed_ , Fred finished mentally. 

There George went again with the Cluedo envelope. She would possibly consider Miss Granger in the lounge with the rope, if only her parents did choose to go to that Christmas party tonight. 

“Oi!” Ron called out, “Freaks, the lot of you.”

George rolled his eyes, only to freeze mid gesture as his mother’s gaze fell upon them. 

 _“— everyone should be comfortable. Well, they’ll have a bed, anyway,” said Mrs. Weasley, sounding slightly harassed,_ but happy to have the option of using the vacated space. 

 _Fred, as Mrs. Weasley left the kitchen,_ pushed to his feet and hip-checked Hermione gently in farewell _. “Well, let’s get going, then, George.”_

_“What are you two up to?” asked Ron. “Can’t you help us with these sprouts? You could just use your wand and then we’ll be free too!”_

He sniffed at Hermione. She needed the manual labor to think through some research and wouldn’t expedite the process on his behalf. 

_“No, I don’t think we can do that,” said Fred seriously. “It’s very character-building stuff, learning to peel sprouts without magic, makes you appreciate how difficult it is for Muggles and Squibs —”_

_“— and if you want people to help you, Ron,” added George, throwing the paper airplane at him, “I wouldn’t chuck knives at them. Just a little hint. We’re off to the village, there’s a very pretty girl working in the paper shop who thinks my card tricks are something marvelous . . . almost like real magic. . . .”_

“Well, if you intend to flirt with the shop attendant, do please tell her that the old hag at home needs more construction paper for Ginny’s decorations.” Hermione looked up from her deft fingers working on sprouts, “Also some stamps, the ones with the butterflies. Luna likes those.” 

“’S not fair to make a man buy girly things, Hermione.” Ron protested, “I won’t ever do that, you watch.”

George nodded, working hard to hide a grin. The ‘girl’ at the muggle shop was in her mid-seventies, and was a complete dear. She liked to talk about her grandchildren and her canasta club. If George was going to leave her, Hermione was glad it would be for someone so lovely. 

“Oh, Won-Won,” Fred mocked, “When you’re a big boy, maybe you’ll get over yourself long enough to join the human race and recognize that women appreciate being treated like human beings when you’re not trying to suck their faces off, which incidentally, includes doing your bit with the shopping.” 

“Fred!” Hermione chided, “Go away and bring me home a sister wife. George, don’t muck it up, tell her she’s beautiful and that you always put the cap on the toothpaste!”

George vowed to do as she suggested, pulling him against her as he hugged her goodbye from behind. Hermione slapped his hand when he reached for a piece of cooling toffee on the shelf above her. He could not distract her with the careful placement of his lips in her hair, no matter his thoughts on the subject. 

Her mind on poor Ron’s hangdog face, she looked to Ron, “It takes time to learn how to properly kiss, you know. It’s all in learning how to breathe, really.” Hermione advised, “I have a book, but the best thing to do is—”

“Merlin, Hermione!” Ron cut her off, disgusted, “I’d sooner ask Mum for advice.” 

Hermione accepted this boundary, and said nothing more than, “Well, if you’d like a book,  I’ve one to give you. Also, Charlie’s very open about things, and I’m sure would…” At his glare, Hermione let go of her inclination to give advice and support. 

Fred dropped a kiss on the top of her head, stole a biscuit from the cooling rack, tossed a piece of toffee at George’s head, and walked away laughing, “I’ve never been compared to a muggle hoover, for the record! You, George?” 

“Fred Weasley, stop listening into conversation in the girl’s dormitory, you lecherous old man!” 

Hermione smiled, trying to soothe Ron, “You’re the top of Lavender’s list, I swear.” 

Apparently, Lav-Lav liked suction. It was all Hermione could do not to gag when the topic turned in that direction. She took herself off, politely declaring that she wanted to respect Ron’s blooming sexuality by knowing exactly nothing about it. 

“Oh, good…” Ron did a double take, “Who did I beat?” 

Hermione sighed. As they tramped through the snow, the twins were cackling with glee. Hermione, listening in with pleasure at their camaraderie and antics, highly doubted she’d be getting a sister wife for Christmas. 

Even so, Christmas was wonderful. Hermione freed the poor garden gnome on the top of the tree. It was _garden gnome that had bitten Fred on the ankle as he pulled up carrots for Christmas dinner. Stupefied, painted gold, stuffed into a miniature tutu and with small wings glued to its back, it glowered down at them all,_ until Hermione freed it, noting that she too, bit when it was sensible. 

Ginny made an explosion of paper chains and Molly argued with Fleur. Mr. Weasley played chess with Remus, and Sirius chatted about golf with Dad, whereas Mum gleefully worked on magical crossword puzzles with Charlie, who had popped home by surprise, before heading off to see one Miss Nymphadora Tonks. 

Hermione heard wedding bells clanging. Even so, her mind was on freeing Stan Shupike. “Another week of unlawful imprisonment,” Hermione declared, “And I’m busting in to free him.”

“I’d be glad to give you tips.” Sirius ventured, looking to Dad, “It’s akin to your Cat A Exceptional Risk prisons. Bit of a thing, escaping.”

Mum demurred, “I hope you will consider legal means, Bunny. Your bail fund might be stretched  a bit with charges like those.”

Hermione looked up from her knitting, “I never get caught.”

Fleur sniffed. “This conversation is not Christmas.” She was clearly not pleased with the ungenteel direction of the conversation. 

Hermione shrugged, “Father Christmas commits breaking and entering millions of times in one night and everybody leaves him biscuits. It seems apropos to me.” 

“Père Noël does no such thing.” Fleur asserted, with yet another delicate sniff, this one accompanied by the upturn of her nose. 

“Naturally not.” Remus said, perfectly nicely, in the way that said she was ten seconds from being pranked by a master.  

“I just love a family Christmas,” Dad voiced, “Don’t you, Mummy?”

Mum agreed that she did, leaving Molly to insist for the fiftieth time that that she would bring the wine for Easter. Remus’ eyes glinted. Hermione looked to Fleur, who had gritted her teeth, for the Weasleys did not spend holidays with the Delacour family. 

* * *

Percy’s cover as a dark-leaning political toady was beautifully done. He was every bit the toadying underling, even while he protected his family from the machinations of the Minister. He offered his congratulations to the eldest Weasley and his affianced bride, and then jovially added, “Weddings come in threes, don’t they?”

Hermione picked up her water goblet, and gave it a gentle sip. “And births, I’m told.” She waited just a heartbeat, just to see the look on Scrimgeour’s face. Hermione let the boys scope out the table, and missed some interesting reactions, though seeing them secondhand was enough. Dashing his evident hopes she added, “I understand you are to be a grandfather this Spring. You must be thrilled.”

“Quite.” He looked vaguely disgusted, as though he could not believe she was so stupid as to think that he meant anything other than a child born of their bond. “Arabella is confident that hers will merely be one of a wave of wartime children.”

Hermione would sooner slit her throat than hand over any child of hers for Ministry oversight. “Statistics tend to prove otherwise.” Hermione shut down the question everyone at the table knew he was asking. “I do look forward to welcoming Arabella’s little Ravenclaw. I’m delighted to attend the shower. You must thank her for the invitation on my behalf.”

“Indeed.” He looked round for a long moment, _“Well, if anybody cared to show me your charming garden . . . Ah, that young man’s finished, why doesn’t he take a stroll with me?”_

_The atmosphere around the table changed perceptibly. Everybody looked from Scrimgeour to Harry. Nobody seemed to find Scrimgeour’s pretense that he did not know Harry’s name convincing, or find it natural that he should be chosen to accompany the Minister around the garden when Ginny, Fleur, and George also had clean plates._

_“Yeah, all right,” said Harry into the silence._

_He was not fooled; for all Scrimgeour’s talk that they had just been in the area, that Percy wanted to look up his family, this must be the real reason that they had come, so that Scrimgeour could speak to Harry alone._

_“It’s fine,” he said quietly, as he passed_ Sirius, and Remus _, who had half risen from his chair. “Fine,” he added, as Mr. Weasley opened his mouth to speak._

_“Wonderful!” said Scrimgeour, standing back to let Harry pass hrough the door ahead of him. “We’ll just take a turn around the garden, and Percy and I’ll be off. Carry on, everyone!”_

But they did not carry on. Dropping below the window ledge, Hermione inched up the window. She could hear very little, and made room for Remus, who shushed a protesting Sirius with a single glance. 

Remus, from the place on his knees, “It’s clear Harry resents being asked about a triad. He’s revealing nothing. He’s softballing, asking about Dumbledore, Harry saying nothing. Asking about Hermione. Love her. Sister. Very private. Don’t talk personal life. See nothing. Circumspect. Hermione’s a lady, not Ministry gossip fodder. etc. etc.” 

Hermione exhaled. There were tears in her throat. Remus continued. “They want the triad and Harry to work for the Ministry, to be seen as supportive, to lend their names to Ministry causes. The face of the new era.” 

Fred swore roundly. George’s rage was palpable through the bond. They were angry that Rufus had been pushing so hard about a baby, and they were livid that he thought for one second they would ever let themselves become Ministry puppets. 

Remus repeated the next bit word for word. _“I don’t want to be used,” said Harry._

_“Some would say it’s your duty to be used by the Ministry!”_

_“Yeah, and others might say it’s your duty to check that people really are Death Eaters before you chuck them in prison,” said Harry, his temper rising now. “You don’t care whether I live or die, but you do care that I help you convince everyone you’re winning the war against Voldemort. I haven’t forgotten, Minister.”_

Harry paused, and after a long moment, Remus spoke again, “There are people who do care if I live or die, people like my parents, like my professors, and yes, like Hermione.”

_“Well, it is clear to me that he has done a very good job on you,” said Scrimgeour, his eyes cold and hard behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Dumbledore’s man through and through, aren’t you, Potter?”_

_“Yeah, I am,_ but don’t forget that I’d die for Hermione Granger. _” said Harry. “Glad we straightened that out.”_

 _And turning his back on the Minister of Magic, he strode back toward the house,_ just as his Papa shoved himself to his feet _._ For the first time in a long while, it seemed that Remus was completely certain that, even in the midst of his teenage angst, that his son was on his way to being a very good man. In the end, he knew Harry was loved. 

It was the best Christmas gift Hermione could have requested. The pall that the Minister left over their lives was unmistakable. There was no proposal forthcoming, and Hermione was starting to wonder, perhaps, if there would ever be a ring on her hand and a future to plan. Fleur, it seemed, since the visit, lorded her upcoming wedding over their heads, as though the Minister actually cared about her wedding. 

* * *

 

The rest of the break set the tone for the coming term. It passed too, too quickly, a haze of emotion and action. On New Years, Fleur invited relatives over for a bonfire. She shamelessly threw her friends in Fred and George’s direction, which amused Hermione, even as it infuriated Mrs. Weasley. 

Their return to Hogwarts was glum. Training increased, more snow fell, and Harry and Ron began to take Apparition lessons, something Hermione had learned to do at twelve. Hermione began to work on birthday presents for her boys, and continued on with her research into horcruxes, which left her feeling overwhelmed and quite sick from time to time. 

Still, knowing Tom as she did, she was confident that he would use his horcruxes to tie himself to wizarding history. The locket, she knew, that they were seeking, was none other than the one that had belonged to Slytherin himself. Thereby, Hermione logically concluded that there was one item from each Founder. 

As to the specifics, she could not predict what they were, but she would know them when she saw them. She had a raging headache, and not because she was trying to understand a madman. Finally, after comforting Lavender as she cried over Ron yet again, she cornered him, and demanded that he speak to her, if only to end the relationship. 

He, of course, did not appreciate her interference and stormed off in a huff. Hermione rubbed her temples, and headed out to see Hagrid, who was once again a sobbing mess. It seemed everywhere she went, people were crying. Aragog refused to see her, so she couldn’t save him, or even try. All she could do was promise to be at the funeral with Harry. The rules about curfew were absurd, and if anyone had anything to say, they were welcome to say as they liked. It would not change her commitment to what was right, even when arbitrary rules attempted to dissuade her. 

Simply being there wasn’t enough, would never have been enough knowing as she did that she might have eased his suffering, but Fred and George came and brought lovely flowers. Harry stayed with Hagrid, even when duty tried to pull him away. In essence, Harry was a good person.  Hermione knew that Harry needed Horace’s memories about horcruxes and left him to it. The irony did not escape her. If he had asked his father, he would have known that they had all of the books on the subject in their library, and more besides. 

After the funeral, they went for a walk on the grounds. In halting, slow, terms, her boys explained a mystery that had grown up between them like weeds, “We’ve been working on a project. It’s not right to keep it from you.”

“We weren’t meant to know, but Matt and Miranda needed help.” George continued, “And we got involved, and before we knew it, we were very involved. They begged us not to worry you, but…”

The guilt that welled in the bond was completely genuine, and it worried Hermione. She felt no anger, only concern and fear for their wellbeing. She didn’t care about anything but their safety. She had learned that inasmuch as she expected Harry to rely on plausible deniability, that some on her part would keep others safe. 

“We’re not keeping things from you. It came down to walking away, or reading you in. We left the choice to your parents, knowing that if they chose the former, we’d be obliviated.” Fred finished, “They understood.”

“What are they hiding?” Hermione demanded, darkness thick around them as Spring took hold on the highlands, “Are they sick? Hurt?”

“Your parents are badass.” George countered, “They set up an entire muggle resistance system. They call it the Underworld. Your codename is Isis, by the way. They’ve been moving people we’ve saved across Europe. It’s amazing, Hermione, the whole thing…” 

“And we’ve been the magical support, when we can. We buy supplies, things like that, launder money between worlds, and fabricate documents.” Fred elaborated, “It’s very small, but it’s beyond anything I think we might have done ourselves.”

Hermione was threatened with tears she pushed away. Her parents, her wonderful parents, were fighting back. They weren’t sitting down. This explained why Dad had scaled back at work, why Mum was constantly going to random conferences across Europe. She wiped her eyes, and knew her truth, knew her destiny, in the next blink of an eye. 

Looking at the men she loved, men who put their lives on the line day in and day out to stand for what was right, she asked, “What can I do?”

“Tell us you love us,” George suggested.

“And forgive us for not telling you first thing.” Fred asked.

“You don’t need to ask for any of that, either of you.” Hermione absolved them. It wasn’t like she had told them she had spent more and more and more of the term hiding in the ductwork stalking Harry like a lovesick fangirl with homicidal tendencies. 

They always, always, had her love. But if they needed the words, they had them. Of course, they got off track a little bit, and by a little bit, Hermione ended up sneaking through the halls in the middle of the night, back to the dorm. They’d, of course, discussed the Underworld, as dissidence was entirely lovely post-coital discussion fare. It seemed only right to affirm life and it lived after the memorialization of death and the experience of loss. 

More and more, Hermione found herself sneaking out to devote her to frontline work, even as restrictions around student activity grew. There were random searches and checkpoints at every single turn. Filch grew manic with his newfound sense of power. Hermione gave it little thought. She had to do what she had to do, and she had to help where she could. 

The checkpoints frustrated her because they amounted to nothing. They helped no one. In this, she was in agreement with Harry. The Ministry was too concerned with assumptions and with appearances. Hermione found the whole thing to be rubbish, and paid it no mind. To give such fear-mongering tactics merit would have ben a personal failure. 

And more and more, she found herself in obscure locations around Europe providing healing and magical assistance to people she and her boys rescued during the growing attacks. If they got word through Percy or Remus or anyone else, they acted, and prevented what violence they could, though preemptive strikes were rare. If they could not, they intervened as they were able in the attack or in the aftermath. It frequently meant moving muggle family of wizarding students, or hiding those who had stood against Death Eaters and Voldemort. 

It was no easy thing. Moments ago, George had gotten word from the Bard that there was a little boy in Mungo’s, dying from a werewolf attack. Though it was the middle of the night, Hermione was well able to dress in the dark. She slid into dark jeans, and a dragon hide jacket, after tucking her hair up under a beanie. 

She met Fred and George in the hospital room, heavily guarded. The boys had slipped inside when Percy had gone to pay respects to the family, for little Phillip was not expected to live to see his sixth birthday, or even sunrise. Hermione was entirely aware of the emotional energy in the room as she, disillusioned, slipped inside. 

Within seconds, she knew she could save the little boy. Percy, acting quickly based on established protocols, ushered the aurors away to collect tea for the family. It was then that the triad made their move. Hermione explained the situation to a shocked set of parents quickly, “We can help you. I can heal your son. But it would require faking his death, and the disappearance of one of you, for the duration of the War. I can tell you nothing more until I have your choice.” 

Fred knocked twice on the door. The aurors were coming up the lifts, the tracking device Percy carried was inching closer and closer. The parents seemed to know what was in the balance, for they made a choice that was unfathomable. The mother took her husband’s hand, and whispered, “Take care of the girls. I will come back to you.” 

With tears in his eyes, the husband kissed his wife, and  his son, and slipped from the room. “I’ll handle the aurors and healers. I’ll tell them we’ve decided to let him go.” 

With that, Fred and George converged. They, using their magical capabilities, conjured a duplicate of the little boy, raggedly breathing, expanded from a generic PocketPal. This false body would fail within five minutes, and would give Hermione the chance to spirit little Phil away, with his Mum. 

Hermione knew, as she watched the mother cuddle her son, that she was ripping them away from the only life they’d ever known to give them a shot. Philip was too sick to apparate, so they took a portkey. It was keyed to a small bolthole flat, where Hermione neither knew nor cared, except that it contained a trained surgeon that she loved dearly and trusted to have her back. 

Hermione laid Philip on the bed, and began to work. Mum  provided muggle-based support rooted in trauma medicine, and tried to explain to the woman, who introduced herself as Lisette, what was going on. “Hermione’s magic—”

“I know of you!” Lisette blurted, as Hermione assured herself that there was no fever and that the bite had not yet spread to his blood or to his heart. His little body was trying to fight, but it was weakening. There was not much time. “My girls are in Ravenclaw.”

Hermione let her Second Sight show the massive damage to the tiny little boy. Slowly, over a period of hours, with Fred and George’s help, she picked away at the magic. She stopped occasionally to steady herself, to take in some water, or to stave off an episode of syncope. Remus knew her skills were growing by leaps and bounds, and he knew better than to ask why. Hermione had simply told him she’d been getting a lot of practice. 

At about sunrise, Philip was in stable condition. His skin was no longer raw and bleeding, and he was most assuredly not a werewolf, because Fenrir had meant to kill, not to turn. It had been lucky, that, for if he had meant to turn Phil, there would have been little she might have done. 

Hermione raced into the dorm as the sun was peaking above the edges of the highlands. Her world here seemed so removed from the growing reality of war, though she knew it truly wasn’t all that different or secluded. She flopped down on the settee, her stomach empty and her heart full. 

Her work with Philip was done. She would not know what became of him, unless he needed further medical treatment. Hermione let out a sigh, praying he would be well. Fred and George were working on documents for them, and Hermione wished them godspeed. 

When Hermione looked up, she saw that Harry was standing nearby, in his pajamas and dressing gown. “You were out all night, weren’t you?” He was instantly wary and suspicious, “Where were you?”

“I went to a party.” Hermione laughed tiredly, wiping her bloodshot eyes, wondering whose blood it was on her hands, “Somewhere in Poland, I think.” 

Harry’s face mottled, and he stormed away. 

Hermione fainted against the sofa, not waking until Ginny roused her, and exclaimed that her gums were bleeding. Hermione, as had become her custom, swallowed Pepper-Up, and went on about her day, with no one the wiser that her muddy muggle parents were, in fact, the source of many of the disappearances they read about in the papers and attributed to magic. 

Her community knew nothing of muggle magic, found not in cards and rabbit-filled hats, but in grit and determination, strength and resiliency. Hermione thought that wizards could learn much from mundane people, and she promised that one day the world would see people like her parents, people who had little power but used what they had to stand firm in the face of living hell and suffering, as the heroes they truly were. 

* * *

Easter morning dawned bright, and from the second she woke up, Hermione felt the blessing of potentiality. Spring was all around them, and Molly hosted a traditional pace-egging on the expansive lawns of the Burrow, which was followed by an egg hunt that made use of much of the surrounding rural expanses. She made it harder for the older participants by keying their wants into certain eggs, meaning that she was only allowed to pick up her eggs. 

Hermione wandered, looking down at her basket, wondering why she felt a little bit like Little Red Riding Hood, gathering items to take to Grandmother’s house. She tramped across the fields, spotting Luna and Ron in the distance. She pursed her lips, _What do you think?_

 _Of what?_ George was clearly hunting his own eggs, nearby to Fred. Hermione wished Molly would stop seeing the two of them as such a unit. Hiding their eggs together only seemed to reenforce the idea of Fred&George, and made it easier for them to win. 

Hermione kicked a tuft of grass gently, not finding a magical egg. _Of Ron and Luna as a couple._

Fred’s response was more measured than George’s, who shrugged mentally. _I’d pegged her as more interested in Harry, now that Gin’s cleared the field._

 _Hey, Agony Aunt, are you going to help me with this?_ George demanded Fred’s attention, and Hermione left them to it, continuing to search for eggs, her whims leading her down a path that led to the banks of the River Otter, a river she had spent many childhood days exploring. Hermione touched the wildflowers tucked in her hair, and tilted her face up to the sun. 

How long ago those days seemed, now. Hermione walked for a while along the river, the sun warm and soft on her body. She felt the boys just ahead, but was in no hurry to meet them, for they were simply sitting under a tree, staring at the sun, obviously thinking about things they did not want her to hear, because they were working through the stanzas of random sea shanties, getting more and more obscure.

And then, just when she was lulled into enjoying the movement of the water, and approaching the tree, they were gone. Hermione supposed they thought moving one of her eggs good fun, but in truth, she really wanted the chocolate she knew to be inside it. Traipsing about Devon with only a hot cross bun to sustain her until lunch required chocolate. 

Hermione closed her eyes, and landed on top of Stoatshead Hill. The church’s parapets were decorated, and flew in the breeze. Soon, the bells would chime. All around her was the evidence of Spring. Hermione knew without asking that they had found all of their eggs. It was only this last one of hers that seemed to be rather contrary. 

She knew better than to ask if they’d help her find it. Rabbits hopped about, and bugs sang in the grass. Hermione was sure she had a few in the hair, but she looked anyway. She was not going to wear the dunce cap at dinner, and she was going to find that egg. It was a matter of principle. 

It was easier said than done, though, and it soon became clear that Fred and George were concerned in their own ways. Finally, Hermione asked, “You haven’t any idea where it is, have you?” 

George muttered, “I put it on the rock, but that was obvious so—”

Fred continued, standing as they were in the knee-high grass, “I moved it. I think it rolled away, really.” 

Inwardly, her frustration was underscored by terror. Hermione chose not to touch it. They didn’t need to make fun. She was perfectly justified in being frustrated. 

“I am not wearing the dunce cap at dinner!” Hermione cried, utterly frustrated. She finally decided to summon the egg, by summoning the chocolate. 

Nothing came her way. If some rabbit had stolen her chocolate, she was going to fashion it into stew, which she wouldn’t eat. But still, the homicidal urge was present. 

Finally, her wellies stumbled on something vaguely like an egg, and she reached down to pluck it from the grass. She could not get it open, and thrust it at Fred randomly, the first person she happened upon, asking that he open it. 

Fred held the egg and looked at it as though he hadn’t grown up with a flock of chickens in his back garden. George, too, had that same hesitant look on his face. Hermione beheld the spherical object with a renewed interest. It practically hummed with triadic magic, but she had never before seen it in her life. 

Hermione’s breath caught. She was determined not to assume, not to posit. She actually felt a little bit shy, which was so unlike her that her boys exchanged a glance before Fred charged onward, “We’ve always agreed that the best way to make change was to ask for it.”

“But, really, sometimes, Hermione, there aren’t exactly the words to express the depth or the breadth of how much we love you, have always loved you.” George continued.

“And really, you’d think we’d have figured it out, how to tell you that we too feel all the things we hear echoing in the things you say to us—”

Fred gave a self-depreciating laugh. “Especially since we’ve attempted to tell you we both want, that we were trying to ask you this, at least three times.” 

“Theseus Scamander, our relative from Mum’s maternal side, you know,” George started anew, “was an auror who defied legislation that barred our participation in World War One.”

“In doing so, he was hailed as a war hero.” Fred added, “Aunt Muriel still goes on about him when she’s in her cups.”

“His wartime efforts were aided by his bondmates, Roxane, and her cousin, Leon. The bond was a little bit shocking at the time because, she, not Theseus, was the pivot and wizarding society was trying to get away from first-cousin marriages, though it does still happen occasionally.” George replied, “Theirs was a love for the ages.”

“What happened to them?” Hermione asked, her heart awash with feeling for these three people who had walked the path before her, “Why aren’t they still alive?”

“You mean because Muriel is?” Fred asked, a bit of sorrow under-cutting his joy as he revealed, “They died, love, in the 30s, shortly after Hitler rose to power, when they began to protest the Third Reich.”

“But they were people who lived, and loved as they died, with everything they believed in.” George assured her, his heart in his eyes. 

Hermione's mouth dried. 

“There are few things we believe in, Hermione—”

Hermione could not credit that untruth, “You believe in laugher, and taking care of the people you love, and despite George’s strange passion for orange marmalade—”

“You, Hermione." Fred backed George up, seemingly resolute, "Just you.”

Fred began, as though she had not contradicted him, “When something really matters, sometimes, we’ve learned, that it’s alright if there aren’t words, so long as you live by and for what you believe in.”

“Still, we’re trying our best, here, to stand by what we’ve been able to articulate.” George grinned, hope and fear and anticipation and wonder. 

Fred looked to her, and Hermione wondered how on earth she had ever been so blessed, “If there’s one person in this world we believe in, it’s you.”

“Which brings us back to our original quandary.”

“Which is?” Hermione did not yet see their connection. 

“Asking for what we want." Fred smiled, gently, hesitantly, "That’s the tough bit, see, because there’s no way to put it into words.”

Hermione had every faith in them. “Try.”

“Marry us, Hermione—” They said this together, and her heart stopped for a single breath. 

George elaborated, “Whenever and however you want,”

“Though soon would be nice.” Fred was ever hopeful. "Just please, Hermione, marry us."

George was a bit more loquacious, though she hardly could hear him through her attempt not to launch herself at them and cry, “Marry us, and we’ll live in connubial bliss, hunting down megalomaniacs, reforming politics and inspiring future generations of pranksters, and maybe, if we’re very lucky, a few bookworms.”

 “That is exactly what I want, too.” Hermione replied, holding back tears she had never expected she’d cry at this moment, “Isn’t asking for what you want wonderful?”

And with that, her tears began to fall. 

“It’d be better if you’d maybe not ugly cry and—”

They didn’t get everything they asked for, but such was life.

She cried until her nose ran, but those tears were happy ones, interspersed with happy yeses, and particularly impassioned kisses, the sort that were full of promise and hope. As they sat atop the hill, the bells at St. Mary’s church in Ottery St. Catchpole began to ring, as the sun reflected upon the green sapphire that was flanked by diamonds on her left hand. Hermione, her skin warming the smooth goblin-made platinum that twisted three strands skillfully and delicately into a single cord to support the gems, was lost to the pleasures of the happy nothings that would dwell in her heart for eternity. 

But, after a time, dinner waited. Hermione did not bemoan the lack of chocolate, but she was rather hungry. She had never found the last egg hidden by Molly, but she figured that she could do just about anything right now and Molly would declare that absolutely perfectly, wonderful. 

George offered up a bet that Ginny’d be the first to notice. Fred took that bet, countering that it would in fact, be Ron, because he was alarmingly perceptive. Hermione left them to their bets, privately placing all of her ante behind Molly. Hermione blamed the stupid smile on her face, but every time she tried to get rid of it, it just sprang back, stronger and brighter and harder to hide. 

And so, to make the bet fair, they each agreed not to say a single word. They made it through the house unscathed, and if anyone noticed anything, nothing was said in her presence. Her father knew, though, because he mentioned, “Mummy’s in the kitchen, Bunny.” Clearly, he needed a minute, because his hand, around the stem of his wineglass, was shaking a bit. 

Hermione had barely entered the kitchen when Mum asked, “Did you find the egg you were looking for?”

Hermione nodded, and Mum, in the spirit of pranks and joy, pointed at Molly, whose back was to them, and hugged her daughter tightly, “They’ve been sweating bullets all day.” She whispered, “I’m so happy, Bunny, because you’re happy. Daddy I could not be more proud of the person you are.”

Molly was dishing up peas, and completed filling the serving bowl when Hermione affirmed with a incongruent smile that finding the last egg had slipped her mind. Molly turned around, clearly shocked and indigent, when she looked at Hermione. 

Hermione had about the space of two heartbeats before the peas were rolling across the floor, and Molly was exclaiming, “Oh, Hermione!” as though Hermione had made the world spin on its axis. 

 _You abandoned me._ Molly crushed her in a hug, one that cracked bones and squeezed air from her lungs as she began to sniffle that one of “her little girls, all grown up,” and so on and so forth, never mind that Fred and George were actually her sons. In Molly’s mind, one of her daughters was getting married, and the who's and why’s of it all was inconsequential. 

In recompense, they showed her Fleur de Lis’s face as the shoe dropped.  It was glorious, and Hermione did not care that a bit of her pleasure was twisted and sick as she saw Fleur go positively green with jealousy. Hermione, naturally, had quite a lot to be jealous of, in life. 

The pleasure at that thought was two-fold and quite smug. Hermione was prepared to forgive a little bigheadedness, today and only today. Besides, the truth was the truth. Whereas Bill’s announcement had been lukewarm, the reception of theirs was nothing short of euphoric, leaving Hermione to remind people to calm down. It was nothing they hadn’t expected, she tried to say, but even she was gain swayed and was swept up in the genuine emotion that assailed them.  

Ginny appointed herself chief attendant, at which Hermione had to put the breaks on the whole thing, even if watching the blonde across from her squirm was fun. “Gin, I’m not sure we’re going to be having any of that sort of a thing.”

Molly had already summoned her calendar so as to affix a date. Taking it from the air, she looked to the twins, “Surely you’re not planning on something so horrible as eloping! Why? What have we done so wrong in raising the lot of you, that you—”

“Mollywobbles, it is their wedding.” Arthur chided gently. 

“It’s just that, well, there’s a war on, and having a big do doesn’t seem quite right somehow.” Hermione smiled gently at Fleur, “For us, anyway, it seems as though we’re painting big targets on our backs. The fact is, being under the radar saves us a lot of trouble.”

“And the War is only going to escalate—”

“But at the  same time, we do want to live life as best we can.”

“Surely you do not mean to marry soon?” Fleur asked, “Perhaps the war will be over by the time you do whatever it is you do.” 

Ginny’s grin was cat-like, “Well, it has to be when I’m home from school.”

“I certainly don’t want to take away from your wedding, Fleur.” Hermione nipped that spat right in the bud, “I don’t expect mine will be anything like yours, and anyway, finding someone qualified to do the rites is going to be a bit more involved.”

The remark hit home. Hermione was implying that her wedding would be better, and they all knew it. Fleur was a bit caught in pink, and glitter, and gold, and words like elegant and sophisticated, which were often anything but, when applied to her choices.   

“I thought Minerva.” George interjected, “She’s a grandwitch.”

“And, as it so happens, she loves us, envies you, and would probably, if we bat our eyelashes, submit it the Ministry as Classified documentation.” Fred asserted, slyly. 

“What wonderful ideas.” Mum declared, “I, for one, don’t think you should worry about the War. You’ll only get one of these, and you should—”

Hermione looked to her father, a look of desperate pleading in her eyes. But Hermione noted that he was already holding a notebook that read _Death Wish’s Big Day._ Hermione wanted to crawl under the table. Ginny could have the big society wedding. All she wanted was to be married, to be left alone, and perhaps to take a bit of pleasure in knowing that the world knew who she loved, and that they loved her back. 

“If you say ‘have the wedding of your dreams’ Mum, I’m running away, joining a polyamorous commune, and changing my name to Rainbow Starshine.” Hermione leveled her mother with a glance, “They’ll probably not even have hot water.”

“Hermione Jane.” Mum rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t last ten seconds in the woods. You hate camping.”

“I would learn to like it under the right circumstances.” Hermione returned, “And anyway, can we just put this discussion to rest long enough to let Bill get married?”

“These things take time to plan.” Molly ventured, “But if small and elegant is what you all want, you’ll have it.”

And that put the conversation to rest, mostly, even if she was presented with gift subscriptions to _Magical Mrs._ and _Bride’s Magazine,_ and the like. Her Mum spent the rest of Easter break suggesting shopping trips that somehow always ended with discussions of registries, until Hermione refused in front of a shop girl, declaring that she was living in unrepentant sin with two men, and they had all the dishes they could use. 

Hermione did not remove the ring when she went to Hogwarts, despite Molly’s fussing. Why would she have done? She was proud that they had gotten engaged in their own time, on their own terms. Tom and his Death Eaters hardly needed a ring to consider her a target. 

She said nothing, but still, Hogwarts had its traditions and the news of Hermione Granger with a traditional family engagement ring spread like wildfire. When a girl got engaged, cards were sent for her card book, and Hermione was inundated with them. Suprsiningy, few students seemed to notice or care who she was marrying, it was simply that there were rituals to observe that mattered. More seventh year girls were engaged than sixth, but she wasn’t the only one, and Hermione assumed that there was less interest in her based on the number of engagements. 

Hermione soon learned that Ginny was managing the rumor mill so as to keep things low-key. When Hermione mentioned it in her gratitude, Ginny merely replied that she was going to be chief bridesmaid if it was the last thing she did, and was assuming the duties because she knew Hermione would come to her senses.  _More like,_ Hermione complained internally, _our parents will wear us down._

The professors were a different matter altogether. McGonagall had her to tea, in place of one of their weekly meetings that continued after graduation. The Head of her house offered her best wishes, and gave Hermione a book on wizarding martial customs. Remus, naturally, had known and offered his congratulations in between yelling at her to sprint faster. It was nice. Hagrid gave her a venomous spider said to bless people with fertility. Hermione tried to be gracious as she asked him to care for the animal, blanching as heavily as Ron when he saw the spider, though not for the same reason. 

Harry didn’t seem to understand that it was a milestone for them, even if they had been together for years. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and he seemed to not really want to talk about it, even when Luna and Ginny were aflutter. 

* * *

 

Life went on and the end of term marched closer.  There were more and more cases with the Underworld, and soon that took the forefront of Hermione’s mind, and the engagement became a fact of life. Hermione preferred it that way, never quite comfortable discussing her personal life. 

Hermione cared little for exams, but she aced them anyway. Sometimes, she had to pick the answers from brains that had taken these classes before her, but she got over her guilty feelings by rationalizing that she was not a superhero. She could not do everything, and in the end, saving lives mattered more than potions. 

Harry was still fooling around with that damn book, and one day, Hermione saw it laying open in the library. Her eyes fell to a boldly scrawled spell. _Sectumsempra_. Hermione knew that spell. She had learned to kill people with that spell, watched as their lifeblood had spilled on the ground with a single slash. In fact, she had used it the day Voldemort had tortured her during the Triwizard. 

And with that, Hermione had enough. She duplicated an edit of the text, and took the original, leaving behind only innocuous spells in the duplicated Prince book. If Harry wanted to be a big boy, well, he could be a real one. She stowed all of her books, and planned. 

 _That gentlemen_ , she privately fumed, _is the old switcheroo._ Fred and George objected to her decision, but in the end supported it. They knew tonight was make or break, and they knew that Harry had come perilously close to killing someone with that spell, with that book. 

Hermione hid the book in her trunk. She did her homework, and set her alarm. At 11:45, after the no exceptions ten o’clock lights out, Hermione rose, and went to the toilets to prepare herself. 

She simply added one more step to her routines, and went into the boys dorm room. 

Hermione shoved Harry roughly, “Get up. Now.” 

She was done, absolutely done, with his Princely attitudes. It was time he faced reality. As he reached for his pillow, Hermione snatched it away, and threw a bundle of clothing at him, roughly ordering that he was to get dressed and meet her in the common room. 

He did, asking for information, information Hermione was not prepared to give. He insinuated that he knew she was sneaking out, that he had been watching her on the Map.  She was pleased to see that he followed her to the passage to Honeydukes. Hermione made short work of bypassing the wards and working through the locking wards to let them exit onto the street. It was routine by now. 

Harry’s jaw was unhinged. Hermione supposed he wasn’t quite comfortable with illegality, but he was going to have to get used it. This, after all, this was the greater good, and there was nothing pretty or kind or correct about it. He needed to see it, and he would see it before the night was over. If tonight did not change him, at least a little, there would be nothing more she could do. 

After tonight, she was prepared entirely to wash her hands of him, this boy she loved, for his own good and the safety of those she had vowed to protect. If tonight did not rouse him, nothing would. It was a last ditch gamble, but she no longer had time to give him. 

Hermione entered the shop, leaving Harry to follow. Fred and George were waiting in low lamp light that cast shadows everywhere. George’s greeting of Harry was nowhere as nice as Fred’s acknowledgement of his presence. Whereas Fred had merely raised an eyebrow, George voiced his objections outright. “I’m not sure he should be anywhere near this tonight.”

Hermione wasn’t sure either. Still, she took the tools on the table, shrank them, and slipped them into the pockets of her dragon hide jacket. She slanted a glance at Harry, who was, it seemed shocked by the man voicing opposition. “I’m not sure either.” 

The truth needed to be spoken. Before Harry could object, Fred pushed to his feet, “There’s no time for this.” He looked at Harry, “There are two ground rules. You speak when you’re spoken to, and you stay the hell out of our way. Run your mouth or pit yourselves against us tonight, and—”

“Fred.” Hermione cautioned. “Let’s just go. We’re going to be late.” 

With that, they side-alonged to a muggle street. Hermione knew by inductive reasoning that they were somewhere in Spain. They were behind a ratty pub, with needles on the ground by the rubbish bin. Harry had landed on a used condom, his expensive trainers incongruent amid such depravity and poverty. 

Hermione quirked an eyebrow, “At least they were being safe.” 

From there, they moved as a group down the street, Fred’s arm on Harry, not only to lead him but to keep him quiet. He’d never been somewhere so poverty-stricken after dark. He’d never been really anywhere outside of the bubble they’d all allowed him to inhabit. They walked two blocks in the freezing dead of night. She had never figured out the city they were in, and that was rather the point. Their reference point was the pub, and only the pub. 

When they came to an apartment building, they let themselves into the lobby carefully, the broken locks on the lobby door making this possible. Though the muggles who lived here did not know it, they were protected by some very strong magic. Hermione, nonchalant, walked over to the bank of mailboxes, and pressed her thumb to the lock. 

The ancient and ratty box swung open. Inside, there was a menu for a Chinese takeaway place in Paris. Tonight, they were headed to France, it seemed, though the city was never mentioned in porkeys, as that was foolish risk. Within a moment, they were gone, leaving the grit of the poverty stricken neighborhood behind, with a pull in their bellies. They landed somewhere near Nice, on the rocky beaches of the Mediterranean. 

Over the wind, Harry demanded. “Where are we?” He had been watchful, suspicious, through the entire journey, but now he was demanding answers. 

Hermione shoved her want into her dragon hide sleeve, and rounded on her friend, “Shut your mouth before people die.” 

His mouth clamped shut, but a vein jumped in his forehead, illuminated by lamplight falling through the slats of the boardwalk that hid them. 

They had almost reached the top of the beach when a van pulled up. They ran, not allowing the van to stop, and dove inside. Harry was the last one in, but he did pull the side door shut with a heavy slam. 

Hermione leaned gently into Fred, even as George began to destroy the Chinese menu. He obliterated it carefully. Then and only then were they able to speak. Hermione began, “Hey, Dad.”

“Death Wish.” Her father grinned in the rearview mirror, “I didn’t think you’d bring him.” 

“I struggled with it.” Hermione admitted, knowing that this expression of doubt was once again for Harry’s benefit. “But if this is his War, if he’s the Chosen One, then he can’t be coddled.”

“Coddled?” Harry demanded, “You think I’ve been coddled, Hermione?”

“I know you have been, Harry, because I participated in making sure you were.” Hermione replied, twisting her engagement ring, “Every single day of my life from the time I was eleven has been dedicated to keeping you safe, and I love you, but you’re getting on my nerves.”

George allowed, “Frankly, we wanted to toss—”

“You headfirst into a real task, but Hermione said—” Fred continued, looking to his brother in a way that was rather menacing, and Hermione knew they meant to show Harry just who they were. No longer were they just the brothers that Harry relied on for a spot of fun. Now, he was being shown the men they were, in the full spectrum of reality. 

George’s honesty rattled Harry. “That you’d endanger the entire operation.”

Actually, she’d worried about his ability to process it, and she didn’t want to hurt him. 

“So consider this your kiddie pool, Potter.”

Clearly, by the expression on his face, Harry did not consider anything about this a gentle introduction to reality. Hermione only wished that her experiences had led her to a similar conclusion. She wished she did not have to find this a bit thrilling to survive. 

“Welcome to the War.” Fred concluded, “Fuck tonight up, and—”

Dad spoke to Hermione as she sat just behind him, navigating dark roads to make sure they hadn’t been followed this time, as they had before, “Such loyal henchmen you have, Death Wish.”

Hermione spoke over George’s final conclusion, nodding to her father. “So good to me, really.”

“Death Wish?” Harry cried, bug-eyed from the threats that had come his way. “This is Hermione! What are you doing, wearing a dragon hide jacket and gadding about Europe! You’re sleeping! You wear twinsets!”

“Am I? Do I?” Hermione grinned, crawling up into the passenger seat. She flipped open the glovebox and shoved aside the knife and the gun, and pulled out some gummy fish. “Gummy fish, anyone?” 

George took them, the sweet tooth that he was, and transfigured them into another flavor. 

“Your dad’s at a conference! With your Mum.” Harry asserted, “Where are we? What are we doing?”

“You’ve had your time for Q&A with Dumbledore, Harry.” George chided, “All good things must come to an end.”

Dad was puffed up with pride. “He got that line from me.”

“You lot have lost your minds.” Harry muttered, but shut his mouth when he was warned. He would get one warning. 

Dad turned down a dark road, flashed his lights twice, and a gate opened. They pulled up to a small, unassuming house. Dad parked the van, and they piled out in silence. Dad went to the door, and rapped on it, twice. When a knock responded, he whispered, “Tooth Fairy and Isis.”

The door swung open, revealing Olivander and Fortescue. They ushered them inside, and led them to a small sitting room. Here, there were stuffed chairs and a comfortable muggle television. 

Hermione looked around, and then back at Harry, whom she was trying to give time to adjust to the fact that missing people he knew were in hale, though in hiding. “This, Harry Potter, is the door to the Underworld.” She grinned, “And I, as you may have assumed, am Isis.” 

“No time for jokes.” Olivander declared, in that dotty way of his, “They’re going to be here any moment, off the train.” 

Within moments, Harry was no longer glum. He was shocked. There were two people, people who had been weaving around Europe for the better part of three months, moving from safe house to safe house, sitting at a battered kitchen table, being offered toast. This was only their latest stop. 

Mum gave the tiny little boy, scarred heavily, yet another biscuit. His mother shook with tiredness as she sipped a coffee, too hot to be palatable. Hermione smiled, “Hello, Phillip. How are you today?”

“I want to go home and see Daddy.” The little boy declared, causing Lissy to stiffen. He continued, “But Mummy said Daddy wants to hear all about our adventure when we go home. So we have lots of adventures.”

“Yes you do!” Hermione agreed, “Would it be alright with you if I took a quick peek, one, two, three fast, at your scars?”

Hermione did not let Harry look away from the scared and torn flesh on the tiny boy’s body. She made him hold the bowl of bloody water, made him hand her the salves that would hopefully stave off infection. She was pleased to see that Harry took time to talk to Phil, to listen about his challenges. Harry was Phil’s idol, and Hermione was happy to see that the genuine article made Phil’s day. 

When Phillip fell into a spell-induced sleep, Hermione stood, and stripped the gloves from her hand. “Fenrir tried to kill him when his mother wouldn’t aid the Death Eaters.”

He had been moved to Mungo’s on the brink of death. Hermione had found him there, and brought him back, long enough to get him out of there and fake his death. His mother’s disappearance was rumored to be a suicide. Instead, they had been smuggled out of Britain on a muggle lorry in Calais, into France, and so on, with fabricated muggle documents. MSF and HM’s Service had left her parents with some, Hermione searched for the right words, interesting skills and connections.  

Months later, here they were, desperately in hiding. The Death Eaters were no longer looking for Lissy, based on the word on the street, but the fact remained that they had to stay hidden. He had two younger sisters at Hogwarts, and there had been zero contact between the father and the mother or the children she’d had to leave behind to save their youngest. Hermione knew the family would be whole one day. 

Hermione could not give Harry details, could not explain that her boys had overpowered her parents and their objections to her involvement when it became clear that they needed to be united. Instead, she only smiled tiredly, scrubbing down the table with a wave of her wand, “Didn’t you ever wonder what I was doing all term? I didn’t sit around and pine for your attention, Harry.” 

There were only a few people in hiding now, but the network had to remain strong. According to Percy, things were getting bad at the Ministry. The visit at Christmas had only affirmed that the Ministry would never be a source of support as the war escalated. Hence, the resistance had affirmed its mission, and put larger plans into action. 

George bustled into the room, a box of Peruvian Darkness Powder floating behind him. Catching Harry’s glance, he asked, “What, you thought we imported all of it to sell? Don’t be so narrow-minded, Harry.”

Hermione smiled. They used a lot of it to help people move undetected. There were stockpiles of supplies across Europe, though they did not know how to access it. There was some sensibility to keeping things secret. They were but one step in the chain, and they wouldn’t even be here if not for little Phil’s need for ongoing medical care. 

Within a hour, they had to be done. Hermione zipped up her jacket, and removed an envelope of muggle money from her jacket, setting it down the table. “It should be enough.” She left the envelope behind, for it contained information as well as money. 

Fortescue nodded, “Thank your young men for me.”

“Thank you for what you do.” Hermione shook her head, and urged Harry with a single glance back to the van. Fred and George joined her after a moment, and this time, it was George who drove, for Dad’s eyes were tired. 

Harry spluttered. He was clearly reeling, and Hermione was almost sure she’d been right. 

“After everything you’ve seen tonight,” Fred snapped, “And you’re surprised we can drive? Grow up, Harry.” 

“Gentleman.” Dad intoned, “This might be a normal Tuesday for you, Fred, but Harry has not had the same experience. The idea that all is not, and never has been, as it seems is a large one for him to handle.” 

“He’d better keep his mouth shut.” George added, pulling to a slow stop at a phone box. Hermione pressed a hand to her father’s shoulder, never quite sure when she would see him again, and wanting him to know always, always, that she loved him and Mummy. He had given up his practice, or most of it, in order to devote himself to this Underground resistance. Hermione had never known such fear, the moment she had found out, nor such pride in the people that had loved her from the second they’d known she was a blob of cells. 

Dad would take porkeys or muggle transportation, back from the supposed conference with Mum. Hermione did not know details, and she knew better than to ask. Hermione put her hand on his shoulder, telling him with touch what her voice could not articulate. 

They piled out again, and, once inside the box, repeated the process that landed them back at the shop, via Belgium and not Spain. When they arrived back at the shop, Hermione stripped off her jacket, and put the kettle on. She petted her half-kneazle and asked her childhood friend, “So tell me, Harry, are you going to tell?”

“No.” He shook his head, “Who saved that little boy?”

His eyes were screaming,  _how did that happen? That could have been me..._

Hermione shook her head, mirroring his expression. “It doesn’t matter.”

Harry knew. He was too perceptive. “How many times have you faced death, Hermione, to keep me safe?”

Hermione avoided the question. “Harry.”

He demanded, “How many times?”

Hermione’s own answer was soft. “I can’t answer that.”

Harry sobbed, and Hermione knew that the tide had broken. Little Phillip had wrought a miracle. God bless Phillip. “Merlin, Hermione.”

“Harry, what do you think love is? Really? It’s not unicorns and rainbows.” She affirmed the truth again, “I love you. I will always, always, love you.” She whispered, “I don’t want you to die for me. I want you to live for you, and only you.”

Harry sobbed in her arms. Hermione knew what it was to feel so alone, and held him as he shook. She patted back his hair, and knew that Harry would always have her love. She would always be there for him, and she would always be a port in the storm.

“I’m sorry, Harry, that I had to do that.” Hermione whispered, as he calmed, “I know it scared you. I regret that more than you will ever know.”

Harry knew the truth now, and all of it. He knew that to love was to struggle, and he knew that nothing was so simple as waiting for change to come to him. People had to make it happen. He could not leave in fear of a prophecy. He had to choose for himself, and she hoped that he knew she would always be here, no matter how big a game she talked of washing her hands of him. 

She would never stop fighting for Harry Potter. He only needed to fight for himself. All the rest would come in time.  

* * *

Their relationships were a bit awkward after that. Harry seemed to regard her with a deeper respect. He seemed to hesitate around her, as though a dragon hide jacket changed who she was in his eyes. If it did, she could not change it.

She was always going to be the friend that loved him, even if he knew her to be more than just that single role in his life. She gathered that he had begun to speak to his parents again, and Hermione rejoiced, even if he did go white for a few weeks when he saw the twins. 

Things came to a head, and quickly. Intel from Percy piled in that an attack on the school was imminent. Percy had cultivated something of a clandestine reputation as a purist, though he was nothing of the sort. It helped to have information, and much of the upper echelons of the government was aligned with the Dark in all but overt activity. 

She knew it in her bones when it began, and put Fred and George on alert the second she was certain. They had been on standby for days. Harry was summoned by Dumbledore, and her clandestine observations of the Headmaster told her that he was running out of time. If he wanted to go out on his own terms, it would have to be tonight. The pattern of his absences had led up to this moment. 

Hermione felt the wards bend to admit her boys with little delay. Ron was still holding the socks, balled in his hand, when George clapped him on the shoulder. “Get Ginny and Neville. Stay together, do you understand me?” 

Ron swallowed, nodded. 

“Good lad.” Fred said, thickly. “There isn’t time, but—”

“If we don’t come back…”

“I won’t hear it.” Ron declared, “Go, and come back.”

Hermione nodded. They knew that, wherever Dumbledore was going, he meant to find a horcrux. The diary was destroyed. Hermione hypothesized that there were many more, each relating somehow to Voldemort’s past, as she outlined over the last few months. What she had been able to glean from eavesdropping and research told her that Dumbledore had one, and was after another. 

They had to stop him. He was not them, was not a triad. This could kill him. He was dying. Hermione saw it in his magical signatures, in the pulses and the auras that surrounded him. It was fact, but it was not a fact she could not change. If he could be saved, it would happen tonight. 

The Death Eaters would come tonight, if they could, when Dumbledore was at his weakest. If he did find another horcrux, he would not be able to sustain contact with it. They were running out of time. Hermione palmed her DA coin, and grabbed her bag. Thinking quickly, she looked to Ginny, who was racing into the room that Harry and Ron shared, driven by instinct, perhaps.

Ginny looked at her siblings, and understood. “I saw Harry.” She simply revealed the truth. “Send word when you can.”

“Gin…” George breathed, his emotions running a gamut underneath the adrenaline. “Stay with Ron and Neville. If Percy should come tonight, and we don’t, tell him Scamander.”

“Do you understand, Gin?” Fred demanded assurance, fear in his soul. 

“Scamander.” She repeated. “I promise.”

“What’s that mean?” Hermione demanded, feeling suddenly like her stomach had fallen out of the bottom of her body, “What—” 

But they were already gone in a swirl. Somehow, they, with the luck of the trio bond to reenforce what she had gleaned from eavesdropping and research, they landed on in the entrance of a cave, only to see Harry and Dumbledore landing a bit away on the cliffs. They raced into a cave, and Hermione let herself slide into her second sight, hoping she had trained for the duration that would now be required. 

“We’ve got you, Kitten.” George vowed, and Hermione let her world become a riot of color, of feeling, of sensation and emotion. 

Hermione was, by virtue of the blackness that rolled off of a section of rock, began _touching as much of the rough rock as_ she _could, occasionally pausing, running_ her _fingers backward and forward over a particular spot, until finally_ she _stopped,_ her _hand pressed flat against the wall._

“Here,” she whispered, feeling magic pulse up her arms. “The entryway is here.”

 _For a moment, an arched outline appeared there, blazing white as though there was a powerful light behind the crack._ Hermione shuddered with the force of it, pushing the evil away as best she was able. 

It was Fred who saw the offering stone first, and sliced his palm, hissing with the depth of the cut. Hermione healed his arm with the brush of her fingertips as they hustled into the passageway. The door slid shut just as they heard footsteps in the distance. 

 _They were standing on the edge of a great black lake, so vast that_ they _could not make out the distant banks, in a cavern so high that the ceiling too was out of sight. A misty greenish light shone far away in what looked like the middle of the lake; it was reflected in the completely still water below._

Their boots crunched in what felt like bones and gravel, silt beneath it. This was not good. Dumbledore could not see the magic that they could, so they had a head start of at least a few moments, but that was nothing in the face of what they had to do. Hermione’s eyes glinted in the darkness. They had to make some choices, some headway, quickly. 

_Their footsteps made echoing, slapping sounds on the narrow rim of rock that surrounded the water. On and on they walked, but the view did not vary: on one side of them, the rough cavern wall, on the other, the boundless expanse of smooth, glassy blackness, in the very middle of which was that mysterious greenish glow._

Finally, George drew his bondmates to a stop. “We’ve got to get to the center of the lake. Whatever it is, it’s there.”

“But how?” Fred asked, knowing full well that the lake was not made of water. It was not human, not magical. It was, somehow, dead and yet living, just like Tom Riddle. 

Hermione knew that they had to find a way, and quickly. She searched the magical signatures in the space, so fast that her head spun, seeing in the distance the glint of a disillusionment. She took off running, her lungs aching from the eerie heaviness in the air. 

“Here!” She called back, grasping the chain, which led to a boat. Fred cast enough light by which to see the vehicle, and George examined it dubiously, leaving Hermione to glance worryingly back from whence they had come. 

They had to get to the horcrux before Dumbledore, for his body could not stand exposure. What was the selfish old man thinking? Tonight, it was very clear, was the night that he planned to go out with a bang, meaning that dearest Snape was going to be bringing Death Eaters to Hogwarts to roost. 

Hermione was not going to let that happen, if only because the school was at risk, because Harry was at risk. They were not ready to show their hands to Voldemort. The diary was gone, and they had a good idea as to the other horcruxes, but no leads on locations nor on how to destroy them without risking death. There was a great deal to be done before they could engage Tom directly, though of course Dumbledore did not seem to believe in limiting carnage or minimizing risk to Harry and to everyone else. 

Hermione hastened forward, but a single utterance from George held her back. “No.” 

With a measured grace, he put one foot onto the edge of the rickety boat. It nearly capsized, as though George was morbidly obese. Arms and legs began to rise up to haul George into the water, full of not aquatic life, but the undead. 

“I think…” Fred breathed, hauling his brother back, and shaking muck off of his shoes, “That the boat measures magical capacity, not weight. We’ll never cross.” 

Hermione had seen measures like that, because Remus used a really large set of scales to measure the growth of their magical capacity, to great comic effect. Nothing about it was funny now. It was a technique used by healers, parents, and it seemed, Dark Lords. The boat was not a possibility then, leaving Hermione to stare intently at the island that was taking shape in the distance, beyond the shroud of green light. 

“We’ve got to cross.” Hermione listened inwardly as Fred and George ran through tactical possibilities. There were several promising ideas. Finally, they agreed, and Hermione voiced their only workable solution, “We use the chain.” 

And so they did. The other end was tethered to the island, so they unhooked the chain from the boat carefully, and drew it out, magically, into a decent approximation of a wide slack wire. It would be like creeping between train cars, though instead of speeding tracks beneath them, they would be mere millimeters from a flock of the undead. 

Hermione sat down on the rocks and bones to shuck off her boots. She needed her toes for this activity. She could float, but not fly, and the difference seemed great, especially since the spaces she had to touch down and balance upon were rusty links of chain. They were large, larger than many of Hagrid’s chains, but they still were very narrow when one considered walking on them. 

They did not have time, because an added terror was the possibility that Harry or Dumbledore would remove the chain whilst they were in the middle of the lake. With a shudder, George vanished the chain. They could feel it, but not see it, and that added challenge was the only thing buying them yet more time. 

Carefully, they toed the chain like a trio of circus walkers, and inched along the chain. Hermione’s feet cramped and burned, corrosive metal under her socks. All around them was death. She closed her eyes, desperate to pretend that there was only one more step, and then to begin pretending again. 

In the distance, as the muscles of her body screamed, Hermione heard Dumbledore and Harry moving along the rocks. It jarred Fred, whom Hermione reached forward desperately to steady. The connection of their bodies caused uncontrolled magic to flare, and they all three cursed inwardly as they continued onward, hopefully shielded by the soupy green mist, as they prayed they would not be caught by the undead guardians they had unwittingly just disturbed. 

Hermione sent up a rare prayer of thanks when one zombie-like hand missed her ankle, and instead curled around the chain with a roared cry of utter horror. It was, she knew now, a cursed chain. They were so close to death…

George clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, forced out a hissed breath he had been holding. Three heartbeats pounded in her ears. Images, fears they could not block without destroying their concentration, flashed in her mind. She had not time to explore them, no time to focus. She had to get out of her head.  

Hermione focused on keeping her balance, with her feet wrapped as best they could be around chain that was very likely cursed. They, in mere meters, would be on terra firma. Hermione nearly leapt forward, pushing off to fly forward. She resisted the urge, knowing that if she moved, that she would move the chain and endanger Fred or George, who were working equally as hard to keep their movements in unison and to keep their balance. 

Fred’s foot hit smooth rock, and he jumped, propelling forward to land on the solid ground, just in time to turn around and offer those who followed him a hand off the rope. Hermione’s stomach heaved, though she wasn’t sure if it was in relief or in horror, for their final steps had taken place just above a dead body, _a dead man lying face-up inches beneath the surface, his open eyes misted as though with cobwebs, his hair and his robes swirling around him like smoke._

Hermione took George’s hand, and reached forward for Fred. “Make sure…” She whispered, “That you’re ready to light them on fire.” 

Of course they were ready, but Hermione knew that sometimes reassurance was not for the person she was instructing, but rather for her own edification. 

The island itself radiated with Dark magic. Hermione did not need her Second Sight in order to know that, to know that the darkness emanated from _a lamp of some kind, but then_ they _saw that the light was coming from a stone basin rather like the Pensieve, which was set on top of a pedestal.The basin was full of an emerald liquid emitting that phosphorescent glow._

“It’s a potion.” George spoke their thoughts aloud, “Barrier, most likely.” 

“We need to get the horcrux.” Fred declared, whispering, for now they were certain that Harry and Dumbledore had hitched the chain to the abandoned boat. 

Hermione cursed inwardly, knowing they should have shoved the boat out into the water. “What do you do with a potion like that?” Hermione wondered, feeling so very sick in the core of her soul.

The twins grinned, “Why, love—”

“Potions are meant to be consumed.” They spoke as one, as though this were a childhood prank. 

“No!” Hermione followed the grim direction of their thoughts as George conjured a cup. “You won’t! I—” Hermione fumbled for a word, some word beneath her terror and her revulsion. “I absolutely forbid it. I—” 

She could not let them do this, she could not watch them split a potion designed to kill them. She could not. She was the most magically powerful being on the planet, and she would find another way, because they were smarter and more inventive, and between the three of them, there was nothing they could not do.

“You think we’re smarter?” Fred cocked his head, “Sweet, but not true.”

“Don’t do this to me!” Hermione cried, tears choking her voice as they toasted one another with a sick calm, as though this was a pub crawl with Charlie and they intended to come home absolutely blotto. 

Desperately, she shut her eyes, willing with all her might that she could make this stop. Her eyes caught something chilling through her tears, when her eyes opened. “Stop!” She screamed it, “Stop!” 

They stopped, naturally, and tried to reason with her. “Hermione, this is not the time!” George seemed almost desperate to make her see, “If we split it, we might be able to heal. It is a risk, but to not—”

During his admonition, Hermione confirmed a truth. She had seen a real horcrux, before, felt it. She had felt Voldemort’s soul, black and dark and nothing. She knew it by feel, if not by sight. What she saw in the depths of the bowl, minus two huge goblets of liquid, told her that the metal locket that glinted in the depths was not a horcrux. 

“What?” Fred hissed, “How can you be sure?”

She could not explain, for they now had company in the form of an irate Headmaster and a shocked Harry Potter. “Miss Granger!” He hissed, venom and anger, “The castle is under lockdown.” 

Hermione, shaking inside with relief, merely inclined her head. “The item in this bowl is not a genuine article.” Hermione was confident that Voldemort would not have surveillance set up of this place, too secure in his own mind to even dream that his hideaway would be bested. 

“It does not feel like a horcrux.” Hermione did not explain, knowing that the barest mention of her triadic abilities would drive him into a rage unlike anything else. 

It was only because of her mastery of the muggle world that she had been able to find orphanage records of Thomas M. Riddle, and that had led her to suspect that Dumbledore would one day lead them here. She only wished they had made haste here, before, if only to avoid this confrontation. 

“How dare you!” Dumbledore cried, his blackened hand standing out in contrast to his ghostly pale skin, sickly and wan. 

But there was no time to explain, not that she was keen to do so, because the voices raised in anger had roused the army of guardians. _Inferi were already climbing onto the rock, their bony hands clawing at its slippery surface, their blank, frosted eyes upon_ them _, trailing waterlogged rags, sunken faces leering._

George cursed. Fred raced to grab Harry, and they began to throw fire towards the advancing bodies. The wall of fire _was crimson and gold, a ring of fire that surrounded the rock._ They were now boxed in, safe from the undead but cut off from their only chance to escape. Hermione knew in an instant that she would have to get Harry and the Headmaster through a wall of fire, as her boys held back the onslaught and protected them all as they made their way to the shoreline, and the…

They had no way across. Hermione, desperately, looked to the wall of rocks surrounding them, and summoned them, shaking the earth around them and bringing fire down upon them as Dumbledore screamed in rage, began to fight. Harry tried to help keep the undead back, and fought with a valor that would have made Remus proud. 

With herculean effort, rocks ripped from the sheer drops around them and flew over the lake, creating a footpath that seemed to be akin to Moses and his parting of the Red Sea. The rocks stuck out of the water, willy-nilly, not her best work, but it was enough to get them across if only they could get beyond the fire safely. 

Hermione felt her skin burning, and knew that she was not burning, but that Fred and George were, and that she needed to work fast to get them free. To lose them would be to lose everything, and they were not people she was willing to gamble. Before the rocks had even truly settled into place, Hermione was racing forward. 

Inferi had grabbed Harry, somehow slipping near to him in his zeal to lend his attention to their defense. _They did not dare pass through the flames to get to the water. They dropped Harry; he hit the ground, slipped on the rock, and fell, grazing his arms, but scrambled back up, raising his wand and staring around._ Hermione took her shot. 

She grabbed Harry, and they rolled through the fire, smoke filling her lungs. She shoved him through the fire and onto the first rock, where he stumbled and righted himself, encircling himself with fire, as Hermione dove through the wall once again, kicking an undead woman in the gut as the being reached for her hair, and another dove clumsily for her legs. 

Hermione grabbed a furious and yowling Dumbledore and shoved him after Harry, her skin aglow with magic. They ran, not like children playing steppingstones, but rather like people who had thirty seconds to get out before the earth brought a cave down into the sea. The earth rumbled with that single thought, and Hermione threw up every protective incantation she could think of, but it was not enough. 

They ran, but even as they vacated one stone, it fell into the manmade lake, the cave tumbling to the sea’s hidden depths around them. Hermione wished desperately for her boots, but they were tucked away. Hastily, they reached the bank and ran, pell mell, for the archway that led to freedom, to safety. Harry’s bloody arm served as the exit fee, and they streamed, out into the open. 

George wrapped her solidly in his arms, leaned into Fred, and with a swirl, got them the hell out of there, just as Dumbledore and Harry winked away, and the cavern fell into the sea. 

* * *

 

Hermione landed with a stagger. Dumbledore was upon her in an instant, “Am I to take your word, Miss Granger, that we have not in fact lost our only chance to retrieve a horcrux? You have, in your arrogance, cost us everything!”

Hermione waited, with a pounding heart, for his bluster to pass, as she shoved bleeding feet into her boots. There was no way she could explain her truth, what she knew to be the truth, but she knew it just the same. That did not mean that she felt no self-doubt, only that she would not express it now. “It was a decoy.” 

“A decoy!” Dumbledore roared, “What proof have you of this, other than your fanciful suppositions that you possess unlearnable, unteachable, magics?” 

Jealousy, it seemed, suited Dumbledore no better than fear. Hermione raised her chin. “I have destroyed a horcrux. I know them as I know Voldemort. To drink that potion would have meant your death, Headmaster. Do you wish to die?”

Hermione saw fear glint in the Headmaster’s eyes. Hermione was, suddenly, awash with sympathy. He was scared. He was so very scared that he was willing to warp a young man to fight a monster that he himself could never slay. How utterly heartbreaking. 

Fred, never one to give into her more sympathetic urges, cut into the conversation. “The ring you keep secreted in your office is a horcrux. Are you after a collection, Sir?”

“George—” The Headmaster cried, looking angry and shocked. 

“I’m Fred.” Fred bit out, “We saved your life, and the only thing you feel is regret? Get some help.” 

Harry cleared his throat, “We may want to—”

Dumbledore held up a hand, but Harry was not swayed. _“Don’t you realize — haven’t you seen —?”_

Something in Harry’s voice, rough from smoke and heat, made Hermione turn towards him. _And she pointed into the sky, in the direction of Hogwarts_ , when her boys looked her way. _Dread flooded the bond at the sound of the words. . . . He turned and looked._

_There it was, hanging in the sky above the school: the blazing green skull with a serpent tongue, the mark Death Eaters left be- hind whenever they had entered a building . . . wherever they had murdered. . . ._

Dumbledore was demanding brooms, but Hermione shook her head. “We can bend the words and apparate inside.” 

At Dumbledore’s dismay, George offered, “We’ve been doing it all term.” He raised an eyebrow as if to ask what the Headmaster would do, expel them? 

Hermione sighed, and they were off, landing carefully at the edge of a great battle taking place in the halls. They were in an alcove that had once house mistletoe and been the spot of many pleasant memories. Now, it was a mere inch from flying hexes, smoke, and screaming. 

They needed a plan, even though Albus’s face had told them that there had been a plan, a plan they’d botched. It was clear by the screaming voices that Snape, back from wherever he had been on Dumbledore’s orders, had let his Death Eater friends in the castle, ostensibly to end the Headmaster. Hermione did not know the details, nor did she care. It was a stupid plan, and she did not have time for stupidity. 

She grabbed Harry roughly, “Can I trust you? Do you trust me?” 

Harry nodded. It seemed that meeting Phillip had changed something within him, for he nodded. He swallowed roughly, “Tell me and I’ll do it.”

George had already body-bound the Headmaster, and Fred was trussing him up, checking carefully for blood flow, safety, relative comfort, and making sure that the ropes wouldn’t rub or burn. The man was an absolute genius with ropes and knots. The element of surprise had worked for them, as had Dumbledore’s weakness. 

Hermione gave him his marching orders in clipped tones, as they all shuffled around the alcove. “Stay with Dumbledore, I beg you.” She handed him a clip from her hair, tapping it with her wand. “One way ticket to Crawley. There’s a return on my desk. I’ll send for you via my coin. If he kicks off, get my Dad.” 

Harry nodded. It was a true test of his faith, for Harry was not one to retreat. Still, they were gone in a wink, taking with them a bit of Hermione’s fear. What the Headmaster did not know was that there was no magical way to leave her parent’s home without her consent, and the train would take hours and hours. The silencing charm would end in but a moment, and there was a knife in her nightstand, should there be an emergency. 

The Headmaster was out of the way. He would not, in actuality, die tonight. “I might go to hell for this, boys, but can you two make me a fake headmaster and stick him, oh, where was he hooting about going?”

“The Astronomy tower.” George grinned. 

“Must be after a good snog with Severus.” Fred grinned, and set of with his brother to make mischief and save their arses one more time. 

Merlin, she loved them. 

The decoy PocketPal Dumbledore sorted, Hermione joined the throng. _The dimly lit corridor was full of dust; half the ceiling seemed to have fallen in; and a battle was raging before_ her. Everywhere she looked, spells were flying. Blood was everywhere, and Hermione dispatched two Death Eaters before she reached the first person she could help. Ginny was holding her own, l _ocked in combat with the lumpy Death Eater, Amycus, who was throwing hex after hex at her while she dodged them: Amycus was giggling, enjoying the sport: “Crucio — Crucio — you can’t dance forever, pretty —”_

That, Hermione decided, was quite enough of that. Her magic felt drained, but she could be a bit of a boost for Ginny, not that the magically powerful girl really needed her. Then again, if there was one thing Hermione knew, it was that sisters stood together. 

Hermione watched in satisfaction as he fell backwards, with the shove of magic, and cracked his skull soundly on the floor. Before she could go in for the kill shot, Ginny was hauling her down the spell-filled hallway. 

Nearly everyone she knew and loved was locked in battle with Death Eaters. Neville, Hermione saw, was totally knocking the shit out of a big blonde man. The professors she passed were well. If Hermione saw relief on McGonagall’s face, she did not stop to acknowledge her faith. She only prayed it as not misplaced. 

Ginny’s hand was tight over her wrist as she slipped and slid through pools of blood. Hermione was very lucky to have shrugged on her boots at the shop, even though they were now likely ruined. They skittered past exploding suits of armor, through burning staircases, leapt past screaming and destroyed paintings. 

 _Out of the way!” yelled_ Ginny _, knocking two boys aside as_ they _sprinted toward the landing and down the remainder of the marble staircase. The oak front doors had been blasted open, there were smears of blood on the flagstones, and several terrified students stood huddled against the walls, one or two still cowering with their arms over their faces. The giant Gryffindor hourglass had been hit by a curse, and the rubies within were still falling, with a loud rattle, onto the flagstones below._

Hermione did not know where Ginny was taking her, but she knew it was important. She needed to get to the Astronomy Tower, but Hermione knew that Ginny’s judgement was trustworthy. If she felt Hermione needed to see something, then she needed to see it. 

At the entrance, Ginny made a hard turn and scrambled towards the direct flight of stairs to the hospital wing. Hermione’s gut clenched. All she could see was Molly, or Arthur, lying there on a narrow bed. Hermione’s soul screamed, in fear, in worry. Not their parents. Please God…

Hermione prayed and prayed, trying her best not to distract the twins, who were getting along fabulously, putting words into the mouth of an animated life-sized Dumbledore. It was basically, a giant puppet, that wouldn’t pass muster ordinarily, but they had smoke and desperation on their side. The magical work was based enlarging the PocketPal with advanced spellwork.

She praised every episode of _Star Trek_ her father had watched with the twins. Who knew that 1960s technology and suppositions would be their saving grace? It seemed to be working. 

Hermione saw through George that Charlie was with them. Therefore it was… They burst into the hospital wing, a single name on Hermione’s lips, “Oh, God, Bill…” 

Ginny swore, “He’s alive, Hermione.” 

They were racing back to the treatment area, which was blockaded for safety during battle. They worked past the wards, Hermione demanding, “Are you sure?”

_“Of course I’m sure . . . he’s a — a bit of a mess, that’s all. Greyback attacked him. Madam Pomfrey says he won’t — won’t look the same anymore. . . .”_

_Ginny’s voice trembled a little._

_“We don’t really know what the aftereffects will be — I mean, Greyback being a werewolf, but not transformed at the time.”_

Hermione raced into the treatment room. She made no bones about shoving a door open, even though it likely frightened the inhabitants. Hermione cared not, for there was an alive, though wan and _unrecognizable face lying on Bill’s pillow, so badly slashed and ripped that he looked grotesque. Madam Pomfrey was dabbing at his wounds with some harsh-smelling green ointment._

The Matron seemed glad to see her, for she stepped aside to make room for Hermione, allowing that, _“No charm will work on these,” said Madam Pomfrey. “I’ve tried everything I know, but there is no cure for werewolf bites.”_

Hermione shoved up her sleeves, exposing burns she had forgotten about, and set about working. These were werewolf slashes, unlikely to heal, and likely to change Bill in fundamental ways. Hermione tried to get a hold on where the magic was within Bill, but her own body was worn and she began to shake with the efforts. 

She could do this. Bill was her brother. He had loved her and accepted her in even the moments she could not accept herself, and she would not let Heaven take him, nor a monster steal his joy of life. Heaving a shuddering breath, she asked for the lights to be dimmed, and for saline. She intended to get as close as she could to the wounds, and they clearly needed irrigation. Hermione worked, Ginny handing her a sterile towel to pat the edges dry. 

The lights were still dim in difference to her pounding head when Molly and Arthur arrived with Fleur. The darkened room set Molly to gales of tears, fearing the worst. _Mrs. Weasley bent over her son and pressed her lips to his bloody forehead._ “Oh, my poor Billy. Oh…” She smoothed back his hair, and pressed another kiss to his unmarked skin, her tears plain as they dripped onto his face. 

Hermione kept her eyes on her tasks as Fleur joined the throng. After a long moment, Hermione looked to Molly, “I’m going to do everything I can.”

“Of course you are, dearest.” Arthur agreed, “He’s in the best possible hands.”

Hermione hoped that his confidence was not misplaced. Fleur, though, did not voice any sort of optimism. She cried, her pale hair falling over Bill, “I do not want your magic anywhere near Beel! He’s vulnerable, he does not need—”

Hermione had had enough of people tonight. She had slogged through death and depravity to reach his side. Even now, her boys were seconds away from confirming that Snape, Snape, of all people, was going to kill who he thought was his beloved Headmaster. 

Hermione thought of the real man, trussed up in her childhood bedroom, and retorted coldly, “Do not start with me, Fleur. Bill is my brother, he has accepted triadic healing in the past, and I am going to help him. I would like to see you try to stop me, in fact.”

“I am to be his wife!” The blonde cried, “What I say ought to go! And I say—”

“Nothing.” Hermione shut her up directly, not with magic, but with words, with truth. “You say nothing, because you forget, Fleur, in your haste to assert your place in this family, that this family was mine long before it ever was yours. So let me give you a lesson on what it means to be a Weasley. We help each other, we take care of each other, and we never let anything come between us, understood?” Hermione smiled, “If you want to be in this family, you will be, but you’ll be expected to hold the line like the rest of us.”

Ginny grinned, and handed Hermione more saline. 

Fleur couldn’t speak. Hermione waited for her nod. She nodded, and there were tears in her eyes. A long moment of understanding passed between them. There seemed to be nothing more they needed to say, though Fleur ventured, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank her.” Ginny instructed, “She’ll get a big head over it.”

This, it seemed, was Fleur’s first lesson in what it was to be a Weasley sister. The thanks were ever-present, but always unspoken. There was no way to verbalize the bonds and the love they shared, so they very rarely tried. 

_“Our Great-Auntie Muriel,” said Mrs. Weasley after a long pause, “has a very beautiful tiara — goblin-made — which I am sure I could persuade her to lend you for the wedding. She is very fond of Bill, you know, and it would look lovely with your hair.”_

_“Thank you,” said Fleur stiffly. “I am sure zat will be lovely.”_ She swallowed, “Of course, you may want it…” 

Hermione shook her head in the negative, and a wall fell between them. 

Ginny whispered, as mother and future daughter-in-law wept together, that at least now they wouldn’t be expected to wear the horrid thing. Hermione continued working, but there was a shove of magic through the bond and, distantly, Hermione heard the voice that changed everything. 

 _“It’s over, time to go!”_ Snape shouted. Through the hidden eyes of her boys, where they lurked hidden the darkness, Hermione saw that he was racing through the castle like bloody Paul Revere, sounding the alarm that Dumbledore, or the animated magic that he thought was Dumbledore, was dead, having fallen with a realistic thunk, over the side of the tower. 

Somewhere, within the grief that Hermione could not chase away, knowing now that everything had changed even if Albus was safe in her childhood home, she heard her boys give a satisfied huff as they slapped each other on the back and began to race to her side.

_Not bad, for a—_

_Rag doll, huh, Kitten?_

_Muggle idea?_

As people began to sob, having heard the yells that Dumbledore was dead, Hermione caught Arthur’s eye. Very discreetly, she shook her head. 

Fred and George burst into the room, laughing, and high on adrenaline. No matter what happened between them, they loved Dumbledore, and they were glad to have been able to save him and draw him out of the line of fire. They were soaked in sweat from the magical exertion, and burnt and battered, but they were triumphant. Wheezes had saved the day. 

Molly, of course, tried to break it to them gently. She was a good mother, and assumed, of course, that they had no way of knowing as yet. “Boys, I’m sorry to tell you that Dumbledore…” She cleared her throat, clearly distraught at the thought of being the one to tell her sons such news, “Professor Dumbledore is no longer with us.”

“Of course he isn’t.” Fred agreed, nodding somberly. 

Molly looked puzzled. 

George, never one to let Fred steal a match on him, looked to his mother, and said, “He’s trussed up on Hermione’s bed in Crawley. Fool man thought we’d let him die tonight. He had another thing coming, I tell you.”

“If anyone’s going to kill the sodding bastard—” Fred agreed.

Arthur coughed gently, but did not offer reproach. 

“It won’t be Snape.” George shuddered, “Perish the thought.”

“Now.” The boys breezed along, Fred leading the conversation as others in the room reeled with shock and relief and terror, “Let’s see what we can do about Bill.”

George saddled up to the bed, and put his hand over Hermione’s before looking to Fleur, “Can’t really fix his ugly mug, Fleur, but we’ll do what we can about the scars and the poisoning.” Shifting to admit Fred to Hermione’s other side, he added, “This family’s not big enough for two people with furry little problems.” 

Ginny laughed, which Hermione understood to be their goal all along. The boys could not stand to see Ginny upset. It ripped into them.

“Enough, please.” Hermione insisted. Fred slanted a look at George, and opened his mouth. Quickly, Hermione cut them both off, “Don’t say that, if you please.” 

“So polite.” George muttered, taking her hand as Fred took the other, and completed the circle around Bill, “Whenever you’re ready, Kitten.”

Magic poured forth from her soul, tired and the very last bit of what she had in her to give, but it was enough to spare Bill long-term trauma. Within twenty minutes, their work was done for now, and Bill was opening his eyes. 

Hermione grinned as he groaned painfully, “You’re gong to live to get married, Bill.” 

Fleur sobbed against his chest. Everyone else filed out to give them privacy. They swore each other to secrecy regarding Dumbledore. Battered, bleeding, and broken, Hermione and her boys went to Crawley, knowing they were going to face an irate Headmaster and a likely annoyed Harry Potter. 

* * *

 

It didn’t matter. They landed in the back garden, simply glad to be alive, even if their skin was falling off in great strips of burnt skin that would have to be painfully debrided. Fred’s magic pushed open the garden door, and they entered the kitchen.

Hermione found Harry sitting at the table, looking gobsmacked. After awkwardly saying hello to her parents, and to Harry, Hermione tried to ask what was going on, too tired to even think. She just wanted to sleep for weeks. 

Her mum apologized, quickly, “I’m sorry, Hermione. I had no idea how little he knew of your activities.”

Hermione sighed. Despite revealing their healing activities, Hermione had never told Harry much. There just hadn’t been time. She had wanted Remus to be the one to start the conversation, with Sirius. “It’s alright. I’m sorry for not being more open.” 

 _“I’ve got to track down the rest of the Horcruxes, haven’t I?”_ said Harry, whose plain truth was interrupted by another voice. It seemed to Hermione that Harry had come to this conclusion at her mum’s kitchen table, with the Headmaster tied and bound upstairs. 

“Hullo?” Ron popped his head in, and Hermione beckoned him inward, as Harry continued to speak. Hermione knew these next words were going to change their lives. 

After a long moment, Harry spoke, _“I’ve got to find them and destroy them, and then I’ve got to go after the seventh bit of Voldemort’s soul, the bit that’s still in his body, and I’m the one who’s going to kill him.”_

_“We’ll be there, Harry,” said Ron._

Hermione was humbled by Ron’s steadfastness, his representation of true and abiding friendship. Her life, Hermione realized for the millionth time, would not be half of what it was without Ronald Weasley. 

“You will never, never, be alone in this.” Hermione promised. “All of the people who love you will support you. But I promise you this: I swear to you that every day you wake up facing this that I’ll be there with you.”

“Us, too.” George affirmed. 

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Fred agreed, shooting Harry a genuine smile. 

From upstairs, Hermione heard a thump. Harry grinned, “But first…”

“Yeah?” Ron asked, “What?”

“We should probably go untie the Headmaster.” Harry ventured, watching Ron’s expression change.

“What?” Ron cried, “What?”

Hermione gently tried to begin to explain that the Headmaster was well. George wrapped an arm around his younger brother, a rare gesture of physical comfort they both needed. 

“He’s been demanding to know how Fred got so good at knots.” Harry revealed, as they trooped up the stairs, “And I thought I would leave that to Hermione, seeing as I found a handy knife in her nightstand.”

Hearing a cough from the kitchen, Hermione colored. She glared daggers at Harry, but knew in her heart that they would be okay. He seemed to understand now, that loving someone meant standing up when they were wrong, not out of anger, but out of love. They had issues, with that damn book, with the plans for the future, but they had a foundation again. 

He had even, it seemed, stood up to Dumbledore, out of love for him. 

Getting even, Fred began, “Harry, I learned everything I know from a very brilliant man.”

Hermione held her breath. Remus had not been their introduction into applied research, at least in this specific area. They were simply very keen for experimentation and applying the esoteric. Hopefully, Harry was ready to go toe to toe, because he needed to be able to hold his own. Otherwise, they were sunk before they even began. 

George nodded seriously, “Your Papa’s been our mentor for what, now, about seven years? You should see him release a—”

Ron shoved at him, “Leave off, would you? Stop pulling his leg.”

Harry snorted, “You know,” he looked at Hermione, “George is entirely entitled to his hobbies.”

“Is he?” Hermione winked at Harry, who laughed as they approached her door. They were standing at yet another precipice, but at least they could laugh together. It was enough. It was more than enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this way, way before FB came out, before we even knew much about it. I'm sorry about the inadvertent tie-in to that franchise. It was not meant to be that way. 
> 
> But yes, Newt's older brother is the most modern Scamander that was part of a triad.


	18. Summer 1997

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From Dursleys going into hiding to the day of the wedding...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isis is an Egyptian goddess, not a terrorist organization, at least in this context. Lupercus is the god that oversees ritual spankings on Lupercalia in ancient Rome. 
> 
> Also, sex and sorrow ahead. Not together, hopefully. Hermione has a book, after all.

Hermione adjusted her pearls gently, and slid her still healing feet into a pair of Prada mary janes. They’d been her Mum’s originally, purchased on a hopeless whim that her Mum’s feet would break them in with a bit of wear. Hermione, having smaller and somewhat daintier feet, inherited the barely worn shoes when Mum faced reality and left delusions behind. She’d never worn them, finding them too conspicuous for a student. 

However, they suited her needs perfectly today. Hermione smoothed her grey button up skirt over her thighs, glad that her sheer tights were charmed not to run. Her pearls rested heavily on her collarbones, so she sent them floating back to the jewelry box.  Hermione found the pink pattern on her blouse to be a bit much, but it would work for her purposes. The trick was not to try too hard, but to send the correct subliminal message. In this case, her message was a simple one: _you can trust me, I’m just like you._

Honestly, thinking about clothes as communication was exhausting. Hermione looked at the scissors on the dresser, and took up her wand. God, the things she did for people she loved. Hermione closed her eyes, and waved her wand, no scissors required.

 With the color of this lip tint, Hermione reflected, the honey blonde hair staring back at her from the mirror across from the bottom of the bed where she sat wasn’t half bad. The thickly uniform flip with the center part cried out for an alice band, and Hermione slid one into the absurdly smooth locks on her head. 

The mirror seemed to grimace as she stared at herself. This was not how she wanted to be spending her Sunday, not with the shop booming in the aftermath of yet more attacks on muggles. She’d been up until six this morning setting up muggle protection wards and trying to limit the damage as they had once done at the Quidditch World Cup, running through the streets of London in desperation.

 Hermione felt a bit of shock rush through the bond from Fred, whom she looked up to see staring at her from the bedroom door. “George—”

Hermione saw that he’d seen the scissors on the dresser, and was staring at her. When George appeared, conforming to the summons that usually meant there was a some sort of howler or shipment in the flat, Fred wheezed. 

“I’ve got a research question.” Fred spoke around George’s interested appraisal. Hermione was quite happy to leave them to their madness as she began to pack her bag, knowing that she was due to meet Harry at Grimmauld. “Most interesting one, really.”

Hermione sat back down on the bed, shoving a few last minute things into her sensible purse. She was never sure what she might need, and so she missed the exchange happening around her. She generally tried to stay out of the mental back and forth that came with invention. 

“So, what say you, George?”  Fred stepped in front of her, looking to his brother, who was, as ever, at his side, “Do blondes really have more fun?”

In response, Hermione looked between them and quite well understood the looks on their faces. Even as she half-heartedly protested, “I’ve got to meet Harry…” she found that the fiddly little buttons on her blouse were George’s new fixation. 

“Better work fast, then, hadn’t we?” George grinned, the pearlized buttons scattering across their bedroom with a satisfying rip as he pulled her blouse open, “Science waits for one one.”

Hermione’s breath was already coming too fast. It seemed that the adrenaline from their work last night was still racing in her blood, intensifying her arousal, “I liked that blouse.”

“Liar.” Fred’s rejoinder was too amused by half as he divested himself of his shirt and unclipped her bra with a single hand, but that might have been because George had vanished her tights, leaving Hermione to gasp in surprise and anticipation. That, though, was the last thing that happened with any discernible speed or spontaneity. 

They were certainly taking a scientific approach to the whole thing, examining data points quite carefully, working in tandem to explore every possible inch of her body, using every sensory ability they possessed, working together, moving as one systematically over her body. Hermione was sensate, beyond reason. She was neither made of glass, nor a butterfly pinned to a board, but their deliberation and tandem focus had its desired impacts.

“Can’t rush science.” George teased her, even as sweat pooled in the dips and curves of her body and she shook with want. His wide palm pressed her down into the bed, gave her something unchanging and solid to focus upon as Hermione took matters into her own hands once again and kissed him, as she reached for Fred, who slid down her body, leaving her every opportunity to open up to him more fully, bending her knee and curling her toes into the covers.

Fred was certainly pleased by what he found, to the point that Hermione demanded, “Stop looking at me!” Every second that passed ratcheted up her anticipation, even as he seemed quite content to stare. 

She gave a shrill of frustration and nearly kicked him when he peppered kisses onto her trembling thighs and goaded her, “Oh, but sight is a valuable research tool.” His very eyelashes fluttered against her right thigh, and then his nose pushed into the crease at her thigh, not where she wanted him, but so close, “And there’s quite a lot to see. Wouldn’t you say, George?”

Hermione arched, and George pressed down to keep her still. She huffed in desperation. “Breathe, love.” Fred insisted, directing her on account of George’s newfound attention to her belly button, nipping up her body with his teeth, or for his own sake as she finally got what she wanted, even as George countered that pleasure with a particularly sharp nip that only made her demand more of both. 

Though Hermione’s world was from then on awash with energy and color, she held herself back. She knew what she wanted, and she was determined to see her will to fruition. She had control. She could hold her own, keep herself from flying over the edge. It was a near thing, but she could do it. She focused on the energy around her, the magic that sparked when Fred applied himself and George finally let her get her hands on him. 

 Fred muttered something that felt like praise against her, and pulled away, and then dextrous fingers were exploring her topography, gently, as though all was new to them, heretofore unexplored. George grinned, somehow finding her choice of words very much in the spirit of the endeavor. Her hand tightened gently around him, and George nipped her gently in response, blood pooling under skin.

Fred pulled the hand George had replaced after removing his teeth and turning their shared focus to his own arousal on her lower belly down, and then down farther still, until their fingers brushed and coexisted within her. Hermione’s focus narrowed down to the fact that she was getting what was no longer a want, a whim, but a clawing necessity, a desperate need that was imperative and critical to her ability to even draw breath. She was utterly determined to have what they were offering, exactly that, without proxy or substitution.

Blindly, on a moan, she lifted her hips, breathing deeply and forcing herself to relax, if only to back up her words and her incoherent verbal mental babbling with actions. 

She knew she had sped things along, thank Merlin, and they’d both gotten the message when her magic, centered on providing what they said they needed, speeding them along, stuttered and faltered. The bottle, midair, jerked, causing the bottle she didn’t really need to turn over with a bit too much haste, pouring WonderWitch oil all over, creating an awful mess on the coverlet, not that anyone noticed or cared, even as their absurd data found in her responses was altered by the scent of spearmint. 

In the next moment, she no longer felt empty. Her toes curled, her muscles tensed, and her voice cracked, as her body stretched as she inexorably welcomed the men she loved within her, beyond mere physicality, body to body, heart to heart, soul to soul, one in three, three in one, triune. An indeterminate time later that was measured not in moments but in dual movements, blood pounded in her ears as magic crackled the air, marking the moment when their bonds were closest, and the circle complete.

Later, Hermione stretched shaking limbs, curled under her boys, as they soothingly luxuriated in the simple closeness of touch. Her heart was still pounding when she asked, “Well?”

“Inconclusive.” Fred declared, his own voice hoarse, “You ruined it.”

“I did not,” Hermione snorted, somehow finding it within herself to rise, supported by trembling legs, and use every freshening charm she could think of upon her person. Even this made her shiver and tighten, knowing as she did that vividly blue eyes were tracking her around their room from the bed that dominated the space, “You just want me to reschedule with Harry.”

“Would you?” George asked, watching with some satisfaction as she abandoned the idea of repairing her torn knickers and fished through the drawer for a new set, along with another bra.

Hermione stepped into them, “No. I’ve been working with him and with Remus and Sirius for weeks over going to see his aunt and uncle.” 

They should have gone into underclothing design at the rate she went through them. As it stood, Wheezes should have had stock in Bravissimo. Hermione stubbed her toe on a pearlized button, and flung it George the Ripper’s head. He caught it easily, and Hermione knew that her pink blouse would be in pristine order when she came home. It was only fair. 

They knew about Harry’s estranged extended family, supported this venture, understood its urgency. Hermione found another blouse, this one a Liberty print wrap blouse with flutter sleeves. Within another moment, she was dressed, her lip tint freshly applied, if mussed from farewell kisses. 

Clutching at her resolve, she popped away, leaving just as she questioned the feasibility of another go when she was informed that she’d skewed the data simply by being herself and the color-altering on her hair spell altered nothing essential or material to the proven theory. 

* * *

A blonde with unmistakable poise and striking eyes appeared in the lounge of Grimmauld Place, finding Harry there with his parents. Sirius startled, Remus snorted, and Harry blinked. “We’re going incognito. Their house is undoubtably being watched.” 

Harry was ready and waiting to go with his invisibility cloak. Hermione had wanted to go alone, but Harry had put his foot down, and they’d compromised. He would come along, but she would have something of a head start. In a show of confidence in his abilities, his parents were not coming along. They loathed Vernon and Petunia, and their presence would have set back their ability to meet their goals. 

And so, they landed in a thicket of hedges beside Number 4’s drive, Harry wrapped entirely in his cloak. Hermione walked up the pavement and to the door, the house giving her the creeps. Even the steps smelled of bleach and desperation. _Nobody,_ she thought, _ever had an orgasm shining the kitchen floor._

Poor Petunia. Hermione wondered if perhaps she had something going on with the milkman. 

 _I would sooner say the repairman._ George asserted, his inner voice marred by horror. 

Fred inwardly gagged. 

Hermione saw, down the lane, people peering out of their blinds. Hermione rapped gently on the door, and flipped through her mind for a cover story. Petunia Evans Dursley opened the door with a put-on falsely posh, “Hello?” 

Hermione winced inwardly. Petunia was from the East Midlands, for Merlin’s sake. Hermione smiled, and responded, “Hello. My name is Hermione, and I—”

“Oh, you must be the woman who just bought Number Eight.” Petunia gushed, leaving Hermione to discover that her love of bleach extended to her hair and her dentition, “Won’t you come in? I met your dear mother-in-law at the market this morning, and she said you would be popping over.” 

_If Mum ever met dear Tunie…_

_She’d hex her on the principle of the thing._

Hermione went along with the woman’s assumptions, refusing tea as they settled into a austere living room that smelled of Dettol and screamed control issues, depression, and projection. There were pictures everywhere of a blonde young man, and a salty haired trim man, who gazed down at horse-faced Petunia with something vaguely resembling contempt. No wonder Petunia was so keen on her neighborhood involvement. 

They chatted for a few achingly long moments. Hermione lamented the fact that she could have been at home, awash in sexual pleasure, rather than pulling teeth with Petunia over mean-spirited gossip. Eventually, Hermione felt her DA coin warm, and knew she had to hurry things along, for Harry would count another few moments and head to the door.

“Mrs. Dursley, I have to tell you something that may be difficult to understand. Allow me, please, to get this out before you respond.” Hermione began, “You are, of course, are aware that your extended family belongs to a rather unique subculture. I regret to tell you that that same community is at War, once again.” 

Petunia exclaimed a denial, as Hermione began to explain Harry’s relationship to this war, though Petunia knew more than she let on, clearly. No wonder Remus and Sirius had never let Harry within five miles of Little Whinging. There was a lot of animosity between the two families, and although Hermione knew the backstory, she did not quite understand how Petunia could be so unfeeling, how she could not help but wonder at Harry’s own growth when she had a son the same age. 

Hermione hastened, watching as bright spots bloomed on an angry face. “I am here to offer you protection. It is imperative that you, your husband, and your son come with me to a safe-house, where you will be protected from the onslaught that is no doubt coming your way.”

Of course, it all went to hell in a hand basket when Harry showed up, having bumped into Vernon in the drive. Try as she might, Hermione could not manage to make them see sense. She was entirely anticipating silencing them so she might get a word in edgewise, but she channeled her inner McGonagall and merely arched an eyebrow, blonde though it remained. 

_It’s all a lot of claptrap,” said Vernon, glaring at Harry with piggy little eyes. “I’ve decided I don’t believe a word of it. We’re staying put, we’re not going anywhere.”_

Hermione tried again, making an earnest effort to explain. She made no mention of Lily, knowing as she did from Sirius that any mention of the departed witch would only raise Petunia’s hackles. Hermione could not imagine the state of their relationship. If Ginny were to ever be far away, because she refused to think of her sister dying, Hermione imagined that talking of her would be the only peace she would ever feel.

_“According to you,” Vernon Dursley said now, resuming his pacing up and down the living room, “we — Petunia, Dudley, and I — are in danger. From — from —”_

_“Some of ‘my lot,’ right,” said Harry._

_“Well, I don’t believe it,” repeated Vernon, coming to a halt. “I believe it’s a plot to get the house.”_

_“The house?” repeated Harry. “What house?”_

Hermione barely held back laughter. Harry, in his status as the scion of the House of Black, stood to inherit a great deal. A house in a subdivision was hardly worth noticing. What would he ever want with a muggle house like this, when he’d grown up in a posh area of London, with houses all over the place? 

_“This house!” shrieked Vernon, the vein in his forehead starting to pulse. “Our house! House prices are skyrocketing around here! You want us out of the way and then you’re going to do a bit of hocus-pocus and before we know it the deeds will be in your name and —”_

_“Are you out of your mind?” demanded Harry. “A plot to get this house? Are you actually as stupid as you look?”_

_“Don’t you dare — !” squealed Petunia, but again, Vernon waved her down: Slights on his personal appearance were, it seemed, as nothing to the danger he had spotted._

_“Just in case you’ve forgotten,” said Harry, “I’ve already got a house, my godfathers_ have raised me _. So why would I want this one? All the happy memories?”_

 _There was silence._ Hermione, from her place on the edge of the sofa, heard long-buried resentment. Harry had always wondered, she knew, why his cousin had never been a part of his life. As someone who had grown up in a large family but never quite part of it in the ways that mattered to him, Harry had wanted Dudley in his life. It was sad to see his hopes being dashed by virtue of his nasty aunt and uncle. 

_“You claim,” said Uncle Vernon, starting to pace yet again, “that this Lord Thing —”_

_“— Voldemort,” said Harry impatiently, “and we’ve been through this about a hundred times already. This isn’t a claim, it’s fact. Voldemort will target you, whether to torture you to try and find out where I am, or because he thinks by holding you hostage I’d come and try to rescue you.”_

_Vernon’s and Harry’s eyes met._ Hermione _was sure that in that instant they were both wondering the same thing. Then Vernon walked on and Harry resumed, “You’ve got to go into hiding. You’re being offered serious protection, the best there is.”_

And then, the calvary arrived. Dudley, home from a school that was evidently Smeltings in his ridiculous uniform, topped with a leather jacket trooped into the house just before Mum and Fred rapped on the door with confidence. George stayed with the shop, but Fred arrived, bringing Mum along for the ride. She strode in, and took the measure of this family in a single instant. Whereas Petunia tried for a certain level of poshness, nothing in Mum’s background was false. In fact, she did her best to make her privilege a tool she used to be an ally to others, preferring to live on her own merits. 

And so it was Mum who took charge, though she bore Hermione no ill will for having lost control of the situation, smoothing it over with a very placating manner that humored the person but paid their absurdities no mind, like she did around Nana. Mum was very good at handling patients and she used every bit of those skills to mediate this situation. 

She wondered if, perhaps, after the War, her boys would like to meet Nana. She was a tough old bird, and they’d surely love her with eternal devotion. It sounded like a talk show, Hermione thought, envisioning with some humor an episode entitled, _My husbands have left me for my Nana,_ complete with judgmental commentary from the occupants of Number Four Privet Drive. 

 Mum was far better at this whole thing. Hermione, after all, had no experience with abusive relational patterns and managing family dynamics gone wrong. It was Mum who made all the polite noises that escaped Hermione’s ability, and Mum who forced Petunia to consider her maternal instincts and duties. Even Mum had written off windbag Vernon as a lost cause. 

It was Dudley who stood up to his father and thew his lot in with the wizarding people. He objected when his father called Harry a waste of space, and soothed his mother’s fears. Despite the atmosphere of control and loathing that permeated the house, Dudley seemed like a decent human being. A little repressed, hesitant, unable to define himself, surely, but that was nothing a little time with The Golden Trio couldn’t fix. 

Fred knew the look in her eyes as she studied Dudley, even before the thoughts crossed her mind. Coming behind her, he whispered audibly, “You don’t need another project.”  

Mentally, George concurred. _You don’t need to take Dudley to your bosom, you know._

She shook her head with a soft smile. It was clear to her that Dudley, with a little bit of time to get to know himself, would be a fine young man, and a credit to his late aunt’s memory. She was so sure of it, in fact, that she was certain Fred would quite enjoy being his mentor to the wizarding community. After all, he had once had a mentor for the wizarding world, had he not?

 _That was entirely different._ Fred posited, but Hermione simply kept her further thoughts to herself, kissed him on the cheek, and headed off to begin packing, even though the outcome was not yet decided. 

The whole place was chintz and china, and gave Hermione hives. There were no books, no papers, no clutter. There were certainly no pets in residence. There were sheets over guest room furniture and lines hoovered into the rugs. She tried to be discreet, and nonjudgemental, but who lived in a house with no books? For that reason alone, Hermione was glad Harry had not been around these philistines during his formative years. 

Once Dudley had persuaded his mother and father, things moved quickly. Fred shrunk the luggage Hermione had parked impersonally, toted it to the Volvo, and spoke in resounding tones about dinner plans, causing Vernon to glare horribly. It seemed he had a particular dislike of sushi. Hermione set up wards around the house, under the guise of helping Petunia to lock up. It wouldn’t stop the Death Eaters when they finally came for the Dursleys, but perhaps it would alert Hermione if the wards held. 

Mum made calls on her mobile phone, obviously setting up plans that would impact her management of the Underworld. Hermione thought her Mum should be Isis as it was she who ruled the Underworld with grace and power, but somehow, Mum quite liked her own codename, which Hermione did not know. 

They all got into the Volvo, Vernon complaining about the idea that six people could fit comfortably into a station wagon. Hermione informed him, “It’s bigger on the inside.”

Dudley ventured, “Like the tardis.”

Something triumphant glowed inside of Hermione, and she sent Dudley a reassuring smile. It seemed this young man had hidden depths. Harry began to discuss the various regenerations excitedly, from where he was sitting next to his cousin, closest to the opposite door. 

“I don’t approve of that show!” Vernon cried, stuffing his lanky frame into the back, next to his wife, who was sitting in the middle, between Vernon and his son. 

Fred, with a devilish grin on his face, watched as Vernon flinched when Fred touched the door as if to climb into the space that would be available if Vernon moved. He seemed tormented between the choices of getting away by moving over, knowing that would allow the wizard to sit down. 

With all due earnestness, Fred asked, “Miranda, would you care to drive?” 

Knowing well what he was on about, Mum declined, “It’s your car, Fred.”

Petunia cried, “Wizards don’t drive! What stuff and nonsense!” 

Hermione slid into the passenger side, leaving her Mum to join her up front. Things were quite roomy, and would suit them all well enough for the drive to Ottery St. Catchpole, where Mum had revealed they were to head while some last minute details were ironed out. It was clear that she no longer planned to house Harry’s family with any other people, as that would be cruel and unusual punishment. Thereby, things had to be moved mid-stream. 

Petunia shrieked in her way as Fred started the engine, and pulled from the drive. Petunia beseeched Vernon to drive, but he declared their entirely mechanically mundane Volvo to be cursed. Hermione sniffed, trying to hide laughter at their behavior when Fred smoothly navigated an intersection. 

Fred explained, “It’s a completely mundane car. We bought it a few days ago at a dealership in Newton Abbot. Wonderful place, really.” 

Petunia declared that a horrible thing to have done. “Imagine, walking into a dealership as bold as brass and buying a good car! What rubbish!” 

 _You should tell her I wanted to spend twice what we did,_ George instigated, _and see what she does. A tenner she jumps out the window at the idea of a wizard driving a better car that dear Vernon._

Playing along, Hermione agreed, “I personally think cars are worse than broomsticks, really. I didn’t much mind the flying Anglia, but I tend to agree with you, Mrs. Dursley. Cars are such a strange hobby.” 

Petunia was torn between agreeing with Hermione because she’d agreed with her, and objecting to the idea that anything mundane was inferior to anything magical. Harry smothered laughter, for they could all see the indecision written clean across her stern features. 

Fred wove through the traffic that would lead them to the M3 with ease. He was laughing internally, but his face was impassive as he noted, “More and more wizards are getting into driving. You never know who you might be driving next to, wizard, muggle, or vampire.” 

Vernon began to exclaim something perfectly dreadful, Hermione was sure, but Harry cut him off smoothly, and said, “Fred, don’t be absurd. He’s teasing. A vampire would never drive. The glare from the glass and mirrors would burn their skin.”

At that Hermione opened the glove compartment, and, moving aside the various miscellany, including the M9, produced a box of sandwiches. They were, of course, perfectly fresh and ready to eat. This might be a muggle car, but there was some benefit to being a witch, after all. Enlarging the box to its normal size with the tap of her fingers, Hermione asked, “Sandwich, anyone?”

Hermione was quite pleased to see that, although his mother protested, horrified, and his father turned puce, Dudley helped himself and shared half of the box of food with Harry. Hermione herself passed over the sandwiches and instead rummaged around for a cup noodle, to which she added boiling water right from her wand. She could not remember the last time she had eaten, but she had to vanish it relatively quickly, the company putting her off her food. Thankfully, the trip to Devon, interspersed with conversations that sometimes took on double meanings and sharp edges, was relatively short.

Hermione struggled not to fall asleep. They had been up all night last night, and then they’d had to get up to open the shop and to get on with the day. Sleep was hard to come by, but not so much that she intended to sleep with Harry’s relatives in the car. She did, however, lean gently against her mother for a time.  

It was nearing dinnertime when the car passed the wards for the Burrow, and crunched down the shell and rock track. Hermione had never been so glad  to see the place in her life. This hair was giving her a headache, and she had a pressing need to perform absolutions. Hermione left Molly and Arthur to play host to horrified muggles, and made her way to the lavatory off the kitchen. 

When she exited it, she heard Molly fussing over the trio of muggles in the lounge, and spotted George creeping about, wearing a matching button-up. In fact, they were wearing identical outfits, right down to shoes Fred hated. 

Inwardly, Hermione groaned. _Please keep the pranking to a suitable level._ The glee she felt rushing over the bond was hardly reassuring, but she knew full well that her boys were very focused when it came to work. 

Petunia, was keen to get away from the chaos that was the Burrow, never mind the fact that it was magical in origin. Vernon badgered Mum to hurry them to their accommodations, speaking in harsh and booming tones over the happy hoots of the family owls, the chiming of the clock, and the movement of a lively family setting about the work of preparing the day’s largest meal. 

No doubt Petunia was having fits. She shrieked when Crooks let himself through the floo, and hopped up on the overstuffed sofa to make himself at home. Of course, he took this as an excuse to begin to rub up against her as Petunia flailed about and hollered. 

Hermione came to the defense of her beloved animal companion, scooping him up from the couch and crooning to him. Forgetting entirely about her blonde hair, Crooks yowled in rage, spitting and puffing up his fur. 

Hermione reached to pet his head, “Oh, don’t be silly, you big baby. It’s Mumsy, Crookums.” 

Hermione released the charm on her hair, the headache dissipating as her riot of brown curls came tumbling down her back, held back the same alice band, not that it did much besides getting lost in her mane. 

Crooks tilted his head, as Hermione reassured him, “There, you see?” 

Crooks purred in apology, and Hermione sat down on the sofa and attempted to sootheVernon and Petunia, who were outright clutching at one another. Vernon spluttered, and Petunia began to shrill for Diddums, who had already fled to Ron’s room with Harry. It appeared that the simple reversion to her natural hair was horrifying. 

 _Personally,_ Hermione thought, _I like my hair better._

It was then, that, fed up with everything from the way Vernon turned up his nose at Molly’s hospitality, the way Petunia kept glaring at everything and everyone who crossed her path, and the way she shoved a jar of hand sanitizer at her son, that the twins decided to put some plan into motion. Vernon would not even shake Arthur’s hand. Screaming at Croosky was merely the rancid icing on the moldy cake. 

Hermione counted down with resignation as she heard dual cracks of apparition behind the sofa. Petunia whipped her head around so quickly that Hermione supposed she might have given herself whiplash, clutching at her husband as the twins spoke in unison, “Hello!” 

They waved in tandem, going around to sit down in a single fluid motion on the sofa opposite their visitors. “We’re very glad…” Forge began, all brightness. It was creepy, to see her boys intentionally matching each other like this, when they were so, so very different. 

“That you have come to visit.” Gred continued in that same happy tone, not missing a beat as horror and dread built on the faces of those they were addressing. It was as though the twins from _The Shining_ had been put on uppers. “Will you be staying—”

 “For dinner?” Forge concluded, levitating a teacup for Gred as Gred did the same for him, allowing them to sip at the same moment. 

“What are you?” Vernon bellowed, veins bulging in his neck. 

Forge replied ever so calmly, his teacup adding more sugar to itself. “Sun in aries, moon in capricorn. You?”

Gred and Forge spoke over dual shrieks of black magic, hoodoo, and devil worshiping. “Oh, no, we worship the Goddess of Wisdom, Minerva.” They shared a look, “Also Isis.” 

Forge was really into the game they were playing, and hammed it up, “You are aware, of course, that Isis is the goddess of the underworld. She’s also the archetypal earth mother and the queen of heaven. Shelters the weak, cares for the poor, controls all magic and purifies the earth.”

It did not seem possible for the muggle couple to pale further, but they did, Petunia chittering, “The underworld?”

“Indeed,” Gred nodded, lazily lowering the shades to block out the glare of the setting sun, “Very lovely place outside Marseilles.”

Hermione buried her face in her hands. She used every bit of control she had not to howl with laughter. 

* * *

Taking pity on Petunia and her neurosis, and the Weasleys, who were having to hear Vernon whinge, Mum got them out of the Burrow very quickly, though not soon enough. Poor Arthur was brokenhearted at the way Vernon had reviled his attempt to bridge the cultural divide, asking Vernon very politely what he thought of the general election. 

It seemed that Vernon was not a Labour man. Hermione wondered if she should check on John Major, who had done much for the magical people, even as Voldemort’s continued rise had created a great many issues for them. Harry met occasionally with Tony Blair, but unlike earlier meetings, she rarely attended. It was Sirius who facilitated those, she knew.

 Oddly enough, Dudley maneuvered himself an invitation to dinner. His mother agreed that she wanted time alone to get set up, and that it was so sweet of her Dudders to put himself out to think of his mother and her need to make a good home for Diddums. Hermione tuned out her blubbering, for it made her quite ill. 

It seemed to Hermione that Dudley was being exposed to a whole new world, a world that had little to do with magic, and everything to do with the fact that the house in which he had found himself was not a showpiece, but a home full of love and happy memories. And so, with the ease of a family with quite a lot of children, Dudley was absorbed into the fold by the end of the night. 

Molly tutted as she scraped dishes, “Imagine, not allowing a grown boy to help with kitchen chores for fear he might hurt himself. It’s all that muggle takeaway that’s ruined his metabolism, I fear.” She sighed, putting another dish in the sink for Hermione to wash, “Never you mind, Hermione. We’ll work on things, won’t we?” 

Hermione nodded calmly, wondering if Dudley knew that he had now earned himself a champion in Molly, who believed fully in raising competent children from the moment they could toddle about the house. 

Molly continued, “And those parents of his are just ghastly, absolutely ghastly. We all must be a help to Dudley, girls, because  who knows what kind of horrible things those dreadful people did to him? Imagine!” Cried Molly, “Never allowed to choose his own clothes or go to a friend’s house for a party! How will he learn to manage life if she doesn’t cut the apron strings?”

“Maybe…” Ginny ventured, “It’s because he’s an only child.” Ginny was sweeping the floor behind them, pushing a broom around the floor. Elsewhere, everyone else was doing their bit. Hermione understood that Dudley was outside with Harry and Ron, tending to the chickens. She could not credit that theory, “I’m an only, Gin, you know.”

“Not where it counts, and anyway, your parents aren’t mad as hatters.” Ginny sighed, moving kitchen chairs about with the wave of her wand to sweep underneath them. 

“My father qualifies.” Hermione contradicted Ginny with a smile. “And I guess I wasn’t raised spoilt like Dudley.”

“I should say not.” Molly agreed, “I just cannot credit that any sensible mother, muggle or magical,  would want to stunt her sons so. My mother’s turning in her grave. Fabian and Gideon were very independent, very like our Charlie, really. Responsible like Bill.” 

It was rare for Molly to talk about her brothers so openly. After a moment, she looked between her daughters, Fleur having taken herself off to her room for a bit of a lie down. “You’ll understand, should you choose to become parents.”

Ginny shook her head, “I’m just going to borrow some of Hermione’s children. She’ll certainly have enough that she won’t miss three or eleven once and a while.” Ginny slanted a glance at Hermione, and mouthed, “Cluck, cluck.”

Hermione flew into a huff, “You take that back! I am not broody! I am perfectly logical.” 

“I didn’t say anything.” Ginny teased, “Geez, Hermione, no need to get your feathers all ruffled. I’m sure your brood will hatch, ah, arrive, just when you mean them to. What’s the average number for ladies such as yourself?”

Hermione muttered a very nasty insult. Ginny knew very well that triadic bonds frequently resulted in rather prolific procreation. She knew, too, that Hermione, despite her inclination to downplay inappropriate interest in her uterus, wanted a family much like the one she had grown up within. She had frequently said that there were too few Grangers in the world, and she very much wanted to experiencing the adventures of raising a family with the men she loved. 

Molly shushed them, “Ginerva, leave your sister alone. Just because you might not want to make the same choices doesn’t mean that you don’t have to respect her ability to choose.” 

Hermione finished her chore good-naturedly, and moved through the house to find George and Fred mid-prank. She’d been listening in for a while, and her curiosity had gotten the best of her. 

Hermione rolled her eyes as George patted their half-cat and continued to convince Dudley, “I believe you’d call us clones. We have duplication spells, you see, and—”

Dudley was looking back and forth between Fred and George with incredulous disbelief. 

Fred demonstrated, showily duplicating the armchair and sitting down up in tandem with George, moving around like Lucille Ball and Groucho Marx. “It works with humans, too.” 

It did not, in fact, work with humans, though they began to offer up exclamations to support their prank. They wound poor Dudley up for a good few minutes longer, their stories getting wilder and wilder. And yet, it was not malicious. In fact, they were directly challenging the Dursley’s perceptions of magic. 

Hermione began to feel badly for Dudley when she realized, in the midst of wandering in and out of the room to observe his reactions, that he was trying to inquire as to how he should act around clones, so as to be polite. Right in the middle of some wild story about how they were, in fact, not only the pair of clones in their circle of friends, Hermione sighed. If they wanted to make utter cakes of themselves, she was totally fine with that, but to draw Padma and Parvati into it was another thing entirely. 

Hermione smiled, “Parvati’s my roommate at school, you know. Padma’s in Ravenclaw, another house. She’s more academically focused, whereas Parvati isn’t.” Clones, she had implied, would not generally be in different houses, nor have different levels of intellectual ability, at least based on the theories her boys had fabricated. 

_Do you know what happens to sticky beaks who stick their noses into perfectly well done pranks?_

Hermione nodded imperceptibly, as the shoe dropped for Dudley. It took him a good few minutes to put his thoughts fully into words, but he did and he understood, then. Finally, he promised, unsolicited, “I’ll tell Mum and Dad you’re just twins, if you don’t want me to. They think…”

“I don’t need to be telepathic to know what they think.” Fred smiled, leaving George to assure Dudley not to worry about his parents. 

“It’s more fun when people think you’re the work of the muggle Devil.” George finished, “Personally, I’d sooner pick Lupercus, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Hermione shifted her ample bum further back into her seat. 

_Promises, promises, gentlemen._

* * *

Soon after Dudley was taken home, they began to settle down for the night. Ginny wandered up to her room to turn on her wireless, and they headed home to the flat. Hermione was trying to do something with a very detailed recount of Rowena Ravenclaw, which of course she was reading for clues as to the horcrux related to her, when a coded note was dropped through the Floo, no owl, no greeting. 

It was absolutely dire, then, and a huge risk on Percy’s part. Hermione knew her desperate need for sleep would have to wait. Hermione rushed to pick it up, while George and Fred crowded around her to read it. They were tops at decoding things, and they needed to work fast. Before Hermione could exhale, the translation flashed across her mind, with a clang of fear reverberating across the bond. 

_Xir iwgetiiw. Hiexl. Glesw livi. Xvieh pmklxpc. Ten escapees. Death. Chaos here. Tread lightly._

They had no choice. Dressed in pajamas, Hermione threw a jumper over her clothes, shrugged on her boots, and hastened with her boys to Grimmauld Place, to sound the alarm. They found Sirius and Remus sitting at the round kitchen table with the Headmaster, who was still infuriated about his house arrest, as he called it. He had not been pleased when Hermione had told him, in no uncertain terms, that to everyone but the family, he was dead. He had raged for days, in silent protest. 

That night, however, rang in her memory as one of a lot of screaming and yelling. The Headmaster’s rage had not cooled, even as his voice was not loud, but rather cutting. Hermione was glad that they had little interaction. Evidently, foiling his ill-constructed plot and saving his life without detection rendered her as little more than scum in his eyes. 

Still, they had managed to impress upon him that the only way to live, and to lead the Order through others who knew of his survival, was to remain at Grimmauld. Hermione had tried to help him see that he go perhaps ought to go to Australia or America, where the Magical Congress was putting increasing pressure on the British Ministry for human rights crimes and Australia was offering to provide homes for displaced wizarding people. 

He would not go. Grimmauld was a compromise. 

It meant that the Order could no longer use the house, and that access to the place was strictly guarded. Hermione had worked with George and Fred to set the wards, the harsh words of the Headmaster ringing in their ears as they had done so. The night they’d brought him here after explaining the situation in her bedroom, he had raged. He’d nearly hit her, actually. 

 After resigning himself to his fate, he had watched the newspaper coverage of his death with a sick sort of obsession, relying on Kreacher as his sounding board and source of ready sympathy, as none of the humans here, he frequently said, quite understood his plight. Dumbledore had bemoaned being unable to go to this own funeral. Hermione had gone, naturally, playing the consummate mourner, using her rage at the Headmaster to fuel her tears. 

Stumbling a stop in the kitchen, Hermione thrust the note at Remus, whilst Fred explained, in detail, the last two minutes of their lives. They were suddenly all, with the flight of ten Death Eaters from Azkaban, in extreme danger. 

Sirius was instantly on his feet, “I need to go get Harry.” He was blissfully unaware of the shock that had just rocked his world, having a sleepover at the Burrow, as he had done nearly all his life on warm summer evenings. 

“Stop.” Hermione said, deadly calm. “The floo’s likely compromised.” 

Hermione did not betray her sources, but they all knew that she spoke the truth when she continued onward. The first thing Voldemort would do would be try to locate Harry, after all. “The Ministry is compromised.”

 _Chaos here. Chaos here. Tread lightly._ That could mean so many things, but she knew Percival was not one to overstate things, and it was Fred who had been outwardly suspicious about the floo. They all agreed, and knew that any movement on Harry’s part would be tracked. If they moved him now, in a big show, it would be a clue that they too, had eyes and ears at the Ministry. They would not risk Percy. Not now, and not ever. Doing so tomorrow was habitual, and would be no cause for alarm. Still, they could not wait that long to move him. 

“I think we’ve got less than a week before Voldemort stages, and wins, an absolute coup.” Fred posited, though he did not explain his thoughts about things had come to be that way, nor why he felt this to be true. 

There was a snake in the nest at the Ministry. Hermione suspected that one person was working to infiltrate the upper echelons of the government, before killing Rufus and putting a puppet minister in his place. Without a dobut, Voldemort knew that _Scrimgeour must be surrounded by_ Death Eaters and Voldemort’s _people before_ he would or even could _act. One failed attempt on the Minister’s life_ would _set_ him _back a long way_. Hermione had little to work on, as Percy had to preserve appearances, and so she was going by whispers on the street from those in the know, most of whom she and her boys had met when helping them to flee the mounting attacks. 

Dumbledore paused, stroking his long beard, “Perhaps the Burrow is the safest place for him.” 

Sirius and Remus objected vehemently. Sirius slammed the table, “He is our son! He belongs at home.”

Remus’ jaw worked, but he said nothing. Evidently, his husband’s word needed neither contradiction nor augmentation. Dumbledore sighed, “Am I to be pushed aside, once again?”

Now was not the time for his complaints. Hermione refused to hear him compare his confinement to that of Azkaban. It was a slap in the face to Sirius, who had spent over a decade there, and was sheltering Dumbledore, knowing that if it was ever discovered, he would be executed on the spot. 

George spoke as figurative steam began to roll out of Remus’s ears. “The simplest thing to do would be to get in the car now, drive to Ottery St. Catchpole, and drive back, totally without magic, totally under the radar.” 

“No.” Dumbledore objected. He raised a hand to still protests. “The fact remains that you, as ever, Miss Granger, are being hasty. There is nothing to be gained from rousing the poor boy from his bed. Dawn will come soon enough.”

“That may be!” Remus declared, “But what will the sun bring with it, Albus? There is no time to lose.” 

And yet, Dumbledore wore Sirius and Remus down. Somehow. Hermione did not know how, except that she heard shouting from where she had been sent into the sitting room with her boys. It was clear that, while Sirius and Remus made the choices for Harry, Albus was not backing down. Even confined to the house, he held them over a barrel with emotional manipulation. 

And so, they apparated home in the evening light, landing near the front door of the shop. It was surreal to see that nothing on Diagon had changed. They had confirmation that the Ministry was on its knees, that there were Death Eaters on the loose, and the whole alley looked as it had hours before. Hermione could not imagine it. 

They entered their flat through the door, and stumbled over a disillusioned object that had come through the floo. Exchanging glances, they all agreed that it might be something important, hopefully from Percy. The disillusioned item, it soon became clear, when they carried it to the table, was a pasteboard box. 

“Were you expecting any shipments?” It, on the surface, contained no dark magic, but her shipment theory was debunked when both young men shook their heads. Hermione let her Second Sight come forth for a single second. With that insight, she amended her perceptions.  Actually, it felt totally devoid of magic in a way that Hermione found momentarily concerning, as though someone had worked to make it untraceable and untrackable. 

Pushing away these thoughts, Hermione attended to the task at hand. They opened the box, musing aloud as they did. George pushed aside some tattered rags, and stumbled backwards roughly, shock and horror pervading the room and their souls. 

 Inside, nestled in a bed of crumpled paper and the tatters of clothing showing great wear, was the severed head of Charity Burbage. Her face was lifeless, waxy, and the slice that had severed her head from her neck was clean, clearly the work of magic. 

Hermione forced away a scream. She bit back tears. George’s voice shook as he placed a steadying hand on Fred’s forearm. “We just saw her. She was fine.” 

Indeed, they had just seen here, fighting in the hallways of Hogwarts less than a month ago. She had fought valiantly, but there had been no reason to make an example of her. Hermione refused to understand how this could possibly have happened, and the reasons why her life had been so brutally snuffed out, her head left in a box on their stoop, with her eyes burned out of her head. 

 _She was pro-muggle._ Fred thoughts rose to the surface of the bond that was aching with loss, confusion and pain. _She treated all people equally._

As though the force of their thoughts spurred her to movement, the head rolled, matted and blooded hair, and the rigid jaw shifted, making it clear that something was stuffed into her mouth. Hermione took a deep breath, and ignoring the pain in the pit of her belly, gently pried Charity’s mouth open. 

With shaking fingers, she pulled a wad of newsprint free. It was, the saw, as they smoothed it out on the table, Professor Burbage’s recent editorial that cried out for the protection of muggles and the inclusion of muggleborns in society. They had never thought for a single second that this would lead to her death, believing her safe behind the wards at Hogwarts. 

Now, it seemed that words as well as actions were cause for someone to be a target. There were, George mentally pointed out, portions of the text that had been circled. _shielding muggles. advocating for muggleborns. stop. death. loss. watching. always. watching._ Though the words were taken out of context from Charity’s original meaning, the sentence was clearly meant for the triad now staring down at the words, the bond so overflowing with emotions they could not express that magic crackled in the air.  

Soon, it became clear that they had choices to make. Looking around the flat, Hermione knew that there would be no leaving the flat tonight. This was their home, and it was undoubtably being watched. To show fear would undermine everything they had worked for since moving in, knowing as they had that something like this, though they had never thought of something so awful, was only a matter of time. Still, it was clear that they had to do something. There was a dead body, or a piece of one, in the flat, and human decency demanded a respect of the person that once inhabited the body, and prompt burial of the corpse. 

 _They say,_ George thought, that open eyes foretells of more deaths, his voice breaking off for a long moment before he began again. _They burned out her eyes so they could not be closed._

Hermione, knowing as she did that tending to the corpse was a traditionally feminine duty, felt honor bound to do what she might. With masculine help, she washed away the blood and the tears, and pushed back Charity’s hair. Carefully, she summoned bandages and wrapped Charity’s eyes and jaw shut, so as to allow her to find peace in death that was not present on her terrorized face. It was morbid and painful, but Charity had lived with honor, and she deserved that respect in death. 

They did not know what else to do. There was no calling an undertaker. Surely, surely, the Floo was being watched and they were cut off from quick access to anyone who might help them. Desperately, it was decided that they would take the train to Crawley. They disillusioned the box, wondering all the while if they were putting her parents in more danger, and took a winding a circuitous route from the muggle entrance to Diagon at Leadenhall Market to the Tower Hill entrance. This took twice the time as usual, as they double-backed, using every evasive tactic they knew to stay out of sight and make sure they were not followed. 

From there, they made their way to Victoria Station. They got lost in the crowds, hearts pounding, wondering if this man or that was a Death Eater cased with following them. It was as heart-pounding as any battle. The train was pulling out as they raced onboard, to the groans and dismay of other passengers. When the announcements came for Clapham, then East Croydon, Redhill, Gatwick, Three Bridges, and then Crawley, Hermione found herself growing more and more tense.

All around her people were saying, as you do on the crowded train, “Can you move? Move, please? Sorry, but can you move? Sorry, thanks, but could you move?” 

She wanted to scream, because no, no she couldn’t move. She could barely breathe, and she wondered what the people would say if she knew that the ginger men weren’t glancing around out of annoyance over crowding, but rather out of self-preservation. She wondered what they would say if they knew that the woman wedged between them, as though they were keeping her close to shelter her from a storm, was carrying a small box that, once enlarged, would reveal a human head of a woman that had given them some of their deepest lessons in the classroom about human unity and kindness. 

At the station, they decided to go to the hospital and find Mum. She worked there certain nights of the month, and though the idea of taking a body part into a hospital was fraught with risk, they did not know what else to do or where to go. It helped that the hospital was a fifteen minute walk from the station, relatively easy, with pavement and grassy bits, shielding them from being hit by a car in the darkening night. 

They trooped into the hospital, Hermione realizing the clothes that she had transfigured on were mismatched. None of them wanted to be here, and Hermione felt so sick with adrenaline that she could barely hear herself think, let alone anyone else. In the lifts that would take them to the…the…

Hermione swore inwardly. Her thoughts felt like they were coming through pea soup. It was George who reminded her gently that they were going to the surgery for oral surgery, and that it was only a few floors up. She sighed heavily as the lift announced their destination. It was George who touched her back gently as the lift doors opened, Fred blocking her from the people around them with the bulk of his body. 

As with any NHS hospital, the place was a beehive of activity, even at night when the dental staff was only on for emergencies. Three worn people blended into the flow like so much woodwork. Hermione approached the desk, realizing that she couldn’t go back without escort. It had been too many years since Mum had brought her to work. Though she did not know the nurse at the desk, she took some comfort in their blue smock. 

“I’m here to see Miranda Granger.” Hermione forced her voice out, starling when she heard her own voice and realized that it sounded gritty, almost as though she had given  voice to the screaming in her head. 

“Name, please?” The nurse asked, moving to a computer as though to check in an appointment, even though it was well after any scheduling time. Hermione expected any minute to be asked for her appointment letter and paperwork. 

Hermione shook her head, wondering what to say. Then, Fred was stepping forward and handing her a folded note. She learned belatedly that he’d written it on the train. How had she not heard him? She took the folded paper, and tried anew, “Well, she’s my mother, and I’ve just come to see if she might have a minute to speak to me.” Hermione extended the note, “If you could just give her this…”

The nurse motioned to another one of her colleagues, who took over and ferried the note back to Mum. They only had to sit in the reception area for a few minutes, before Hermione saw a side door opening and a dark-haired woman with curly hair was looking around the seating, focus clear in her gaze, “Hermione?”

Hermione forced herself not to launch herself at her mother, as she stood and caught her mother’s eye. She was a grown woman in the middle of an escalating war, this was a hospital, and she was not going to fling herself bodily at her mother and beg her mother to make the hurting stop. This was not a schoolyard snipe, and she was no longer a little girl. Still, the tears that she had been holding back for ages threatened before she could push them away. 

Mum ushered them quickly back to a small office, one she used for consultations. It was not as big as the office at her surgery, but they fit inside. They lowered the shades, put up wards, and set up countless security charms before revealing the events of the day. It was all Hermione could do not to shake when she realized that Mum remembered the muggle studies professor from countless letters. 

Hermione listened and participated insofar as she was able to decide that Charity’s head would be cremated, as it was likely the rest of the body was never going to be found. Hermione was confident that if anything came back on them from Voldemort’s people in the auror office, that they would happily turn round and offer the evidence and let them hang themselves. Insofar as they knew, the muggle documentation they were fabricating would hold up even in muggle courts. 

What they were doing was highly illegal, naturally. It did nothing to shake their resolve or make them question their choices.

Mum needed magical help to make it happen, but within a few achingly long hours, and through the use of several confundus charms, falsification of documentation, and other such magical workarounds, including fabricating CCTV footage, Charity’s remains were disposed of in such a way that was at least respectful. 

Hermione told herself that the muggle studies professor would have loved to see the inside of a real working muggle hospital. She could not see it in death, but Hermione hoped that her soul was beyond pain and with them to see that there were people who cared, and who would see her murderers brought to justice. They left the hospital as nonchalantly as they had entered, just before dawn, sweat and tears commingled on their skin. 

They had not eaten since that long ago dinner at the Burrow, and the pangs of hunger were hard to ignore, even as they felt profane. They collectively knew they could not face the flat without food in their stomachs, and so they went into the closest place they found, the first they saw on the way to the Station. Numbly, a worn triad worked through plates of food, watching as the sun came up through the window by their table in the nearly empty restaurant. They spoke telepathically, but said little beyond asking for the salt or rummaging for muggle cash. 

Later, when Fred threw up his entire meal after returning to the flat, it was clear they would never go there again. It was clear to Hermione that although killing lives and saving lives were commonplace to them, the realization that after death came bodies and destruction, not only of their enemies, but of their friends, was another thing entirely. After all, when she dreamed about all the wizards she had killed in the past, each and every one of them possessed the professor’s face, right down to her hollow and burned out eye sockets. 

It was no small wonder that they slept not at all. 

* * *

“That,” Hermione seethed, “is the most addlepated plan I’ve ever heard! By making duplicate Harrys, you’re not minimizing risk! You’re increasing it!” 

Hermione was not willing to back down. Dumbledore might be holding court in his confinement, passing orders to the Order through those who were trusted with the secret, but that did not mean that he had the right to send almost a dozen people towards certain death. 

Perhaps it would have been better to handle him with kid gloves, but forgive her for being on edge. Yesterday, she had traipsed about the UK with a human head in her possession after finding her professors head on her doorstep with a threatening message, after dealing with Harry’s family, after spending an entire night helping mundane communities prevent attacks, after an equally trying day. She’d come here to discuss this and get Harry home, only to be forced off into this tangent, functioning off of less than 75 minutes of sleep. 

They did not have time for this. Fred drew a line in the sand, “You won’t be getting polyjuice from us.” They brewed extensively, and had emergency stores, but this was no better than pouring it down the drain. 

Dumbledore was enraged, so enraged that his voice was mere whisper. “I believe you fail to understand the gravity of the situation.” 

 _We’re not telling him about Charity._ George declared this emphatically, and it was instantly accepted by his bondmates. Once again, their contributions were erased, as though they weren’t the frontline of this war. It wasn’t about them or Dumbledore. It was about working together, which clearly he was not willing to do. 

They were outvoted, and outranked. Dumbledore raged at her idea of taking Harry from the Burrow, where he was now stuck, to Grimmauld in muggle fashion. In this, he was so much like Vernon and Petunia that it was laughable, if only in that he distrusted muggle means with the same fervor they hated anything magical. It did not speak well of him in any respect. 

During this time, they paced the sitting room. It was decreed from on high that they would travel by broomstick, but that they would not be duplicating Harry, and would instead disguise everyone equally. She accepted the compromise, and they three agreed to provide the potions from their stores. 

 Broomstick travel rendered Hermione grounded, as she was a liability. In the end, Fred and George decided to go, not out of loyalty to Dumbledore, but out of solidarity with Ron, Bill, and Charlie. Ginny could not go, as she was underage, but she would serve as lookout for returns to the Burrow. 

Hermione, meanwhile, chanced the floo, using detection spells to ascertain if the Burrow’s floo was being actively monitored. They were, for the magic around her glowed blue when she stepped out of the floo. Arthur, there in his kitchen, looked at her dubiously before he realized that she had been testing the wards and was now using triadic magic to create porkeys that would land in the back garden. It was illegal, but she hardly thought he’d report her for making portkeys. 

Hermione stowed her emergency portkeys in the cupboard and went to join Harry and the others in the garden. After a long moment, _there was a sudden, deafening roar from somewhere nearby.The darkness seemed to be rippling, the air itself quivering. Then, one by one, figures began to pop into sight as their Disillusionment Charms lifted. Dominating the scene was Hagrid, wearing a helmet and goggles and sitting astride an enormous motorbike with a black sidecar attached. All around him other people were dismounting from brooms…_

_Hagrid said, “All righ’, Harry? Ready fer the off?”_

_“Definitely,” said Harry, beaming around at them all,_ his parents and friends and certain members of the Order. _“But I wasn’t expecting this many of you!”_

 _“Change of plan,” growled Mad-Eye,_ who was, of course, Dumbledore’s confidant. 

This was, of course, because this morning they had received confirmation that Thicknesse had gone over to the Dark, and was clearly meant that Harry was being watched and tracked. She wouldn’t be surprised if she were, too, based on the results of that spell. She hoped that Fred and George were still under the radar. 

As those who were going discussed their plans, the triad’s single hard won-concession was brought up. Instead of polyjucing several Mr. Potters, they were all polyjuicing into random muggles. Hermione sacrificed the bits of hair from her stockpile with the relief borne of someone who was so tired of fighting that she was willing to compromise, even over the objections of her soul. 

Mad-Eye continued outlining the plan, “ _If you, or anyone around you, casts a spell to get you out of here, Thicknesse is going to know about it, and so will the Death Eaters. He’s bound to have a couple of Death Eaters patrolling the skies in this general area. So, we’ve given a dozen different houses every protection we can throw at them. They all look like they could be the place we’re going to hide you, they’ve all got some connection with the Order: my house, Kingsley’s place, Molly’s Auntie Muriel’s — you get the idea.”_

Distantly, Hermione heard the ding of the timer over the cooker, and she extricated herself to go tend the potions. In the kitchen, she separated it out into vials and randomly added the bits of hair required to key the potions. She missed the rest of the explanation, but she knew it well enough as she had gone over and over it to work out flaws. 

After putting the potions on a tray, and letting Molly serve them and pass out portkeys, Hermione blended in with the cadre of Weasleys that were congregating loose bands in their usual habit when amongst company, even in their own garden. The brush of a hand along her elbow and a gentle squeeze of her hand were all the farewell she got, not that she wanted anything more. To acknowledge this as a parting was impossible. She would not do it. 

She hesitated as they began to get on their brooms. Hagrid fired up the motorbike, borrowed from Sirius, who was riding a broom, looking very dashing indeed as a elegant man of color, with striking eyes and coal-dark hair. Remus, however, was none too at ease in the skin of a slightly rotund man who Hermione had first spotted on a rugby pitch. 

_Perhaps I should go, too. I should go. I shouldn’t not go._

They’d had this conversation at least ten times in the last hour alone. The gentle refusals that came down the bond were somewhat forceful, as though the gentle smiles on their faces conveyed understanding while their emotions conveyed that there was no time for second guessing. 

_Somebody had to stay with Mum._

_Would you rather it be Fleur?_

Hermione went into the house as they kicked off, shields lowering as they took to the skies. Ginny made a last second decision and looked to the owl that never left Harry’s side. “Hedwig, go inside with Hermione. You’ll point him out.”

Hedwig flapped over to Ron, and landed on his shoulder, nuzzling his nut-brown hair, pulled back into a bun. The owl pulled gently at his feminine hair, and Ron patted her feathers before insisting she go along inside, “I bet if you ask nicely, Mum’ll give you some bacon, and none of that yucky tofu stuff.”

Hedwig tilted her head, and rotated round to confirm this with Hermione, who stuck out her arm to provide the snowy owl with a perch, to see everyone fly off. Hermione stroked her feathers, gave her bacon, and tried to soothe Molly, who held the clock in a death grip. She tried to stop mentally chanting _please, please, please, be alright_ when she realized with some urgency that her worry was seeping through the best shields they could erect between each other. 

Thereby, she focused on small household chores. She packed their trunks, _please be alright,_ and felt entirely useless, like a stupid, vapid, hausfrau who couldn’t manage a broom. She vowed to herself that she would learn to fly, and drive the car, and not throw up on buses. 

* * *

_“Expelliarmus!” Harry yelled._

_“That’s him, it’s him, it’s the real one!” The hooded Death Eater’s shout reached_ George’s ears _even above the thunder of the motorbike’s engine: Next moment, both pursuers had fallen back and disappeared from view._

 George spun round, and, with Remus’s blessing, began to chase them. The shields held once again, and Hermione was shoved out of the mental connection roughly. She heaved a heavy breath, and looked to Molly. 

Her mother-in-law was looking back at her, “Any news?”

Hermione lied, and did not say that Harry had been identified. “They’re keeping me out. I suppose I’m too mentally chatty.”

Molly gripped her knitting tightly, and looked to the clock. 

_Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tock, tick._

In between the next _tick_ and the resultant _tock_ , the shields exploded and Hermione screamed, “George!” 

It was an elemental scream, one of rage, one of pain, one of refusal. She knew. She _knew_. She would not accept it. His heart had to beat. It had to beat. The blistering pain had to leave him. Hermione distantly heard herself screaming, but she was mentally where she knew she should have been from the start, with them, even if it only meant falling into the bond. 

She refused to let him go, but the pain in her soul was indescribable. She was being ripped in thirds, her own magic flaring as though it could reach him, support him, save him. _George!_ Her heart and soul and mind and voice were screaming as one. 

Hermione lost track of time, lost track of anything but finding the thread in her soul that was George and pulling it closer to her heart, pulling him closer to the source of her magic. If she had to give it all to keep him alive, she would. She would, she would, because he was George. She and Fred couldn’t even so much as breathe without him. Her chest felt hollow. 

Oh, Merlin, _Fred. Fred._ Hermione shoved yet more magic towards a terrified and faltering Fred. 

Suddenly, Hermione was ripped to the surface of her consciousness with a tear-filled sob, one that came from Fred, who, with Arthur, had abandoned their mission and doubled back for George. Oh, Fred. 

Merlin, his rage and fear was incomprehensible. Hermione yanked hard, as hard as she ever had, on the bond. Fred was there, and they were one in their absolutely terror, deeply and totally unified in their soul-wrenching pain.

George did not respond, no matter how many times his bondmates pleaded, begged, and demanded. He did not respond. He was not there. She heard someone keening, heard someone shrieking out with a loss so profound that it defied explanation. 

Hermione noted that there was wood digging into her knees, and that she was screaming, sobbing, in Molly’s arms. She didn’t even know what she was yelling, over the rush of the blood in her veins and the pulses of magic around her, magic that had shattered everything that it could possibly break. Her hands were bleeding with shards from the coffeepot. 

“You can’t go to them.” Molly was forceful, holding her down, holding her back. “They’re in the air, love, in the air, and you’ll fall. You’ve got to stay—” Hermione lost herself in the bond, then, shoving as much magic as could towards both of her boys, shoving so hard that she didn’t wonder at the way she shook with sobs again. 

It hurt. It hurt. She was sure that if she could just let go, just go, it would be—

The bond reverberated with connection, and Hermione had a sudden flash of togetherness that shook something loose again in her soul with a shock of electricity. She wanted, needed, to be with them, wherever they were. She didn’t care what it took, what she had to do, she’d tear the earth apart down to magma if it meant that—

“’Mione, you’ve got to breathe.” There was another voice in her ear, feminine, lighter, terrified. 

“That’s what it takes. Breathe.” 

Her skin burned. Her lungs burned. She couldn’t feel anything more. She just knew that they were together, and George was not even so much as flickering with light inside of her soul. She wanted to be where they were, needed to be there. 

Hermione reached out to Fred, slogged through her cracking soul, to reach him. He was terrified. Terror did not even begin to describe how he felt, though he was trying to be rational. He was trying to be rational, but she wanted so much, so much, just to tell him this would be okay, but there was no making this okay…

And then, a ragged sound she rarely paid attention to filled the bond. _Thump._ It was….was….

 _His pulse, Hermione._ Fred was shaking, holding his brother against him as the wind whipped around them. George had a pulse. _Faint, but regular. Losing blood, can’t staunch._

Hermione heard herself weeping openly, felt herself rise to the top of her mind once again. This time, somehow, she could stay there, even whilst keeping the strand that was George within the bond, close to her. She saw nothing but worried, tear-stained faces all around her, Molly and Ginny. 

Hermione threw her arms around Molly, and hugged her, pulling herself weakly to her feet. Her magic was humming all around her, in an ellipse of power and intention. Hermione focused on George’s heartbeat and Fred’s steady breathing, and knew the second they were coming close enough to land. 

With Ginny, she raced past others who had already begun to appear, and fell to her knees beside George, who had landed, like Fred, flat on his back. Whereas Fred pushed to his feet, George did not. They, together, got him into the house, and onto the sofa. 

 _An ear._ Fred told her, _Snape got his ear. I’m going to kill him. I swear to God, Hermione. He’s signed his death warrant. I think he went into cardiac arrest up there when he fell off the broom. I’m going to kill Snape. With my bare hands, won’t even need a wand. Dead._

As she knelt by the sofa to staunch the blood and get a look at the gaping wound, _i_ mages flashed in Hermione’s mind, the steely gaze of Snape as his hood fell back and he threw a hex at George, the way his body had gone limp, the way Fred had hastened to him. Hermione had already torn off his jumper, and pressed her head to his chest, diagnostic spells floating everywhere around him. They told her he would wake any minute.  

She just needed to hear what she felt reverberating down the bond. _Thump. Thump._ _Thump._ _Thump._ _Thump._

She’d already worked through a bottle of iodine and a whole roll of gauze, soaking the side of the sofa and the floor, along with her knees, when it became clear that the wound was largely localized to his ear. George coughed, once, and vomited, Hermione grabbing a bowl as Fred turned him so he wouldn’t choke as he expelled what little he had inside of him. 

Time was of the essence, so she was glad, so very, very, glad when George’s thoughts came forward through the miasma of pain he was experiencing. They rushed to assure him that he was generally alright, and yes, his head did hurt, but his brain was fine. 

_My ear!_

_You’re fine, you’re fine._

_You’re going to be fine._

_Do you want me to close the scar and take the pain or do you want us to try and give you your ear back?_

_Can you do that?_

_I can’t, but we can…_

_Still love me if I’m an earless wonder?_

_Of course—_

_We’ll still love you._

_—Idiot._

_Fred!_

_I’m bleeding, you arse._

_Doesn’t absolve you from ridicule for colossally stupid questions._

_George. Ear regeneration or wound closure? Your body, your choice._

_Ear. I quite like having a matching set._

_It’s going to hurt. You could do all new pranks with a prosthetic ear._

_You sound like Hermione. I want to at least try._

With that, George passed out once again. Fred pulled Hermione close enough to whisper, “It was severed with dark magic. We have no way of knowing if we can regenerate it. It could possibly send us all into fits.”

Hermione looked to Molly, who was hovering tearfully, bringing more towels and vanishing the blood-soaked ones. She looked to George, and moved away from Fred to uncork a blood-replenishing potion with her teeth. 

They worked to get it into George before she Hermione found enough words to reply, “It’s what he wants. We’ve got to try. Stay with him, I’ve got to get ready.” 

Hermione wrenched herself away from their sides. She went into the kitchen, and put a huge pot of water onto boil, one that looked like a witch’s cauldron from a fairy story. She could not fail him. She would not fail him. She wished with all her might that her Mum and Dad were here, but they weren’t and there was no way to get them. She found an able and willing helper in Ginny, though, who set up the potions kit without prompting. 

Ginny folded an endless supply of towels and stirred potions while Hermione crushed, diced, and stirred. Very quickly, Molly sat with George, and she and Fred worked tirelessly to brew. Hermione had not yet told anyone what they planned to do. However, everyone knew something was afoot. 

Hermione poured potions to prepare him down George’s throat. 

Fred expanded the sofa, shoving aside much of the other furniture. He set up lights, and held George’s hand. George, over the span of three hours, helped along with a great many potions and spells, almost seemed like himself, if pale and shaken. 

_“Arthur!” sobbed Mrs. Weasley. “Oh thank goodness!”_

_“How is he?”_ Arthur directed this question at them, but Hermione, overwhelmed with the task ahead of her, could not find the words and instead left Fred to give an answer. 

 _He gaped over the back of the sofa at his twin’s wound as if he could not believe what he was seeing._ “He actually wants his ear back. He’s determined to throw away a chance for a whole new world of pranks.” 

_Perhaps roused by the sound of Fred and their father’s arrival, George stirred._

_“How do you feel, Georgie?” whispered Mrs. Weasley._ She had asked him this question over and over, but George had yet to give her an answer she liked. If he admitted to pain, she wanted to up his dosages, never mind the risk for kidney and liver damage, and if he said he was fine, she sobbed all the harder about what a brave boy he was, and how horribly she felt. 

_George’s fingers groped for the side of his head.“Saintlike,” he murmured._

_“What’s wrong with him?” croaked Fred, looking terrified. “Is his mind affected?”_

They had rarely used narcotic pain potions over the years, and the fuzziness of their mental connections terrified Fred. Hermione had a headache, but she was trying to keep Fred as mentally as close as possible. He needed her, and George was high as a kite. George would have survived a nuclear blast, and giggled about it. She and Fred were seconds away from a mutual meltdown. 

_“Saintlike,” repeated George, opening his eyes and looking up at his brother. “You see . . . I’m holy. Holey, Fred, geddit?”_

_Mrs. Weasley sobbed harder than ever. Color flooded Fred’s pale face._

_“Pathetic,” he told George,_ as relief rushed down the bond _. “Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humor before you, you go for holey?”_

_“Ah well,” said George, grinning at his tear-soaked mother. “You’ll be able to tell us apart now, anyway, Mum.”_

Molly gave a watery sob, “By tomorrow you can confuse me, again. Won’t that be lovely?” Her face wobbled and she buried her head into her husband’s shoulder, “Oh, Arthur.” 

When Molly had left the room, George grinned dopily up at Hermione, “It hurts my heart to look at you.” Hermione wondered if her tear-stains and blotchiness were that dreadful. She couldn’t help but smile when George’s gaze cleared enough to continue, “You’re so pretty. Why are you so pretty?”

“Your heart hurts because you went into cardiac arrest today. You’re going to be okay. You’re completely stoned, but thank you.” Hermione adjusted George’s blanket, and leaned into him for a second, smoothing her hand over his hair from where she sat along his side, “Sleep it off, alright? In a little bit, we’ll work on your ear.”

George’s normally strong hands wobbled as he reached out, placing a shaking hand on her knee. Hermione refused to let her tears mar his skin, but the sight shook her more than his bloodied head had done. Had those hands, less than a day ago, pressed her up against the closet in the laundry room, and kissed her senseless? Had those hands brushed along her arm so sure, hours ago, never knowing that their next touch would be altered? 

George inhaled deeply, and fell asleep. Hermione stayed, staring down at him from her perch on the edge of the sofa, looking at her bloodstained trousers, reflecting upon how close they had come to losing him today. She stared down at his pale hand on her knee, for how long she did not know. 

Fred came and found her, then, understanding, doing nothing more but sitting with them both. They communed in a shared silence, Hermione and Fred’s focus on George, and through George, each other. By mutual accord, they rose in silence and went to the kitchen, where a sterile environment waited. 

Hermione sat down at the table. “Are you sure you want this?”

Fred scoffed, “Hermione, it’s a bit of skin. What’s it matter?” He was already shoving up the sleeve of his shirt, like she was going to remove a split thickness graft right then and there. Already, she could see that the location would have to change. No spell would make such a large space bright enough to use.

“It matters because it might cause lasting nerve damage, even with immediate regeneration with potions. It matters because it will hurt like hell, even with every block we can think of. It matters because you’re going to bleed, and it might get infected. It matters because you need to understand what you’re doing.” Hermione tried to modulate her tone, “Once I start, I can’t stop, and that’s something I hate saying.”

Fred shrugged. He was determined to be brave, determined to do whatever he had to do for his brother, and Hermione understood. She understood, because she was doing something she had sworn never to do. She was hurting Fred, to save George, and not only to save George, but to give him something he wanted and needed. She had always sworn that she would never do this, and here she was, staring down the barrel of a scalpel. 

“What a pair we are.” Hermione choked. It wasn’t easy loving someone as much as they loved each other. It had never been easy, but right now it was exceptionally challenging. Now was not the time to bond over their mutual devotion to George, however. “It’s been a while since I had any healer training.”

His blue eyes were vivid, communicating thoughts he succinctly put into words. “I’d still want you to do it.” 

Fred had faith in her, a faith that she did not know if she could live up to, “Muriel was a healer, you know. I could try to get her to—”

“I need you to get me through this, I need to get you through this, and we’ve got to get George through this, and the best thing to do is rely on each other and get it done like always.”

Hermione, finally, finally, gave voice to her regrets. “I should have been there with you.”

“Kitten, you nearly leveled the Burrow.” The kitchen that Fred was examining was new to Hermione, in that everything was perfectly ordered. The chip in the finish of the table was gone, along with the divot. Everything had been repaired by an excellently trained witch of immense power. 

“I suppose I should apologize to Molly.” Hermione ventured, “I wasn’t rational.”

Fred absolved her, reminding her of a fact that rang, even now, in her ears and in her mind. “His heart stopped, Hermione.”

Hermione whispered,“So did yours.” 

* * *

The lights were bright, almost overly bright, in the enlarged toilet upstairs.

The metal tray and the magical surgical tools it contained, unearthed from Hermione’s bug out bag hidden in the closet here at the Burrow, contained everything they would need for various procedures. Luckily, she had been taught to do the spells needed to do this in fourth year. Madam Pomfrey had assumed she’d had an interest in healing, but really, Remus had been training her to make sure she could keep everyone alive. She could amputate limbs, deliver babies, and aim for someone’s arteries in hand to hand combat. 

And so, they began. “If this were a mundane procedure, it would done in hospital, with a full team. Instead, you’ve got a witch, a wand, and your kid sister on standby with the stasis chamber.” 

“Funny.” Fred was numb, entirely numb, on both of his inner thighs. Still, Hermione hated the heat and the intention that flowed from her body as the skin was sliced into, and removed. It took all of thirty seconds, but Hermione felt his pain. It was terrible, even secondhand. Her hands shook as she cauterized the wound and closed it, wiping his fresh skin with regenerating tonics and numbing salves. 

Donor wounds often hurt more than the recipient’s own, because of healthy nerve endings that did not need a potion. Hermione quickly wrapped the bit of skin in saline soaked gauze. 

Fred was already chugging a skin regeneration potion, and a pain potion. He’d refused a stronger dose because he only, he insisted, wanted to be out of pain enough to help George. There was only so much the bond could do, and she could not take his pain when they were both working so hard to siphon away George’s agony. The skin on his inner left thigh was pink, raw, and new, but it did not look as though it might become infected. 

Hermione slipped out of the bathroom, leaving Fred to dress again and to hand off the gauze to Gin. Ron hovered as Fred came down the stairs, wobbly, but altogether alright, insofar as these things went. Hermione saw a flicker of tension in his face, and reached out gently. 

Her soul bled. _I hurt Fred to save George. God forgive me. Fred…_

Fred reached out for her and gripped her hip as he sank down into a chair. Hermione reached for his pulse point or a chakra point, but Fred pulled up her hand and kissed her open palm before she could begin to draw out the pain. _There is nothing, nothing, to forgive._ His eyes caught hers as his lips pressed to her worn and cracked palm, _Nothing._

Hermione felt the sharp sting of rejection, even in the midst of a closeness that had nothing to do with the way they communicated or felt one another, but rather had everything to do with being united through this pain. Taking care of George meant taking care of the people he loved most, and focusing on that common goal meant that they were seeing each other with a deeper clarity. Stepping closer, Hermione dropped her head on Fred’s broad shoulder as his wide hand spanned her back, rubbing the tired and cramping muscles gently. 

Ron and Ginny were amazingly supportive, running interference to keep Molly calm and to pitch in where they were needed without question or complaint. Charlie, Bill, and Fleur were all staying with Aunt Muriel for the night, as per the plan, and did not have an inkling as to what was going on. Neither did Percy, but Hermione knew that they all would have wanted to be here. The house was deathly quite and filled with a nervous anticipation. 

It wasn’t the fashioning of the ear that was the challenging part, for that was based on a few complicated spells that involved no human risk or pain. Ginny watched on in fascination as they worked. “If I wasn’t going into Quidditch, I’d consider being a healer. It’s pretty amazing, what you’ve done tonight.” 

“It’s this next bit that’s tricky.” Hermione voiced, biting her lip and forcing away fear with a sigh. The attachment of the ear would test the bond, and her particular ability and skill as a focus. It was one thing to configure an ear with a bit of skin. It was one thing to grow a bit of cartilage based on cells, but it was another thing to ask the bond to attach the ear, and heal and restore the incisions and wounds so that the ear functioned. 

It seemed, in the past, to be such a small matter. Now, though, it seemed a cavern far larger than the lake they had crossed at the end of term, and far more deadly. Hermione looked up at Ginny, and returned her hopeful smile. There was nothing more they could do but push onward. 

George was chipper. George was a little bit high. George was fixated on her position over his body, leaning over him, her wand in hand as she worked. They were almost done with the attachment when, George, focusing not on the itchy feeling of reattaching skin, but rather on his proximity to her breasts, vanished her bra.

Hermione was at ease enough to chastise him gently, “George, now is not the time for pranks.” 

Hermione held her wand steady, as she tilted George’s slightly towards his chest when he tried to look up and deny his antics. Hermione wasn’t particularly fussed. She’d been dressed so long that the straps and band were digging into her. She just hadn’t thought to remove it. “I did not. Wish I had, but I didn’t.” 

Hermione huffed, and slanted a glance at Fred, sitting catty-corner to her, holding George’s head steady and minding his overall wellness, “Kitten, the man had his ear chopped off, he’s suffering from blood loss, and you’re literally right there.”

She had another section to affix, but this was the hard part, the bits of cartilage that held the ear out from the skull. This next part had to be done with absolute precision, or his hearing would be affected. Hermione shoved her thoughts away, made her mind blank, and knuckled down as she had done before, feeling muscles and bone and sweat and clenched fingers over her churning fear. 

George muttered, sleepy and drugged, “I’d do the same for you, Freddie.”

Fred’s free hand in George’s hair, trembled lightly as he affirmed gently, “I know.”  

George hummed, his eyes drifting shut. As his cartilage attached, Hermione felt the two most strained buttons of her presently ill-fitting top slip open. “That was me.”

Hermione laughed, and holding her wand steady, pressed a gentle kiss to George’s temple, “Go to sleep.”

As the extremely strong potions took George off into the Land of Nod, Hermione and Fred worked quickly. This was incredibly risky, and for all of the calmness they were projecting, the whole procedure was fraught with tension. Hermione felt magic swirling within her, a sort of magic so fundamental that it was known through the ages as some of the most sacred work of the triad. 

This did not feel sacred. It felt gritty and terrifying, bloody and intense. She did not feel zen or centered. She felt on edge and off-kilter. She did not feel the give and take of energy, did not feel purification and energy wash through George. All she felt was the desperation of her sheer will, the burning of the truth on her fingertips and in her heart. 

When it was all over, there was no way to know if it had worked. Fred wrapped up George’s head, and Hermione fixed her buttons. She banished the blood soaked toweling and gauze, and Fred cleaned up the shaven part of George’s head. Only time would tell if everything they had done would be a success. 

Molly wept openly, and when Hermione tried to get off of the stool to give her space with Arthur, her limbs shook. Ginny grasped her arm, and led her to the toilet to scrub the sweat trapped on her skin, left over from the barrier spells that did not allow her to contaminate George, at the expense of allowing her skin to breathe. Hermione looked at her shrunken face in the mirror, the broken blood vessels standing out in stark relief. 

She shook when Ginny pressed a warm flannel into her hands. After scrubbing her face, Ginny left in the interest of her privacy. Hermione stood, and tried to turn on the tap. She couldn’t. She tried three times, thinking the tap to be broken. It was only when she tried it manually that she realized that she was, in a phrase, magically exhausted. She didn’t need to question herself to know if the risks had been worth it. It had been, even if George did lose his hearing and they had to remove the ear.

If nothing else, Hermione knew now that they could cling to one another and get through anything life might throw their way. 

Of course, neither she nor Fred slept. It was pointless to even try. Even when Molly and Arthur and Ginny and Ron were there to help George, there was something instinctual inside of them, rooted not only in their triadic bond, but also in their fundamental concern for George, that did not let them sleep. 

Some time after the second bandage change, Fred cracked a grin. “I think we’ve slept a total of three hours over the last three days.”

By Hermione’s count, it was less. The next morning, the sun cracked over the horizon and the house began to fill again, with everyone coming home from Muriel’s house. There were a great many tears all around as everything was explained. It was with baited breath that they waited for a few hours, to see if the spells and procedures therein had been effective. 

The bandages vanished. George’s face looked swollen, but his ear was symmetrical. Physically, he looked, or would look, no different. In a few day’s time, even the swelling would leave him. He would appear to be as he had been. The proof, however, was in the pudding. 

Bill, having had extra training for curse breaking, knew how to do hearing checks. Hermione did not reveal that she knew the process too. He completed the spells and tasks within minutes, and a heavy lead weight left Hermione’s chest as relief and hope and joy flooded the bond. 

When the room cleared of visitors, Hermione leaned down and whispered, “I love you.”

George squeezed her hand, tightly, his grip stronger. “That’s nicer to hear than those beeps Bill used.”

Hermione handed him a headache potion, and went down to fix his lunch tray and give him and Fred a few minutes together. It was clear that they needed it. 

* * *

 _They were often joined by other Order members for dinner now, because the Burrow had replaced number twelve, Grimmauld Place as the headquarters._ As a cover story, _Mr. Weasley had explained that after the ‘_ death’ _of Dumbledore, their Secret-Keeper, each of the people to whom Dumbledore had confided Grimmauld Place’s location had become a Secret-Keeper in turn._

_“And as there are around twenty of us, that greatly dilutes the power of the Fidelius Charm. Twenty times as many opportunities for the Death Eaters to get the secret out of somebody. We can’t expect it to hold much longer.”_

_“But surely Snape will have told the Death Eaters the address by now?” asked_ someone _._ Hermione was not following the conversation closely, so she missed it. It might have been Harry, helping the cover story along. He seemed, in the face of her shock to see him here, eager to do what he might to help. Hermione appreciated it, she only wished that he was not here. 

Hermione was enraged that, after everything they had done to get him home, he had been allowed to turn right round and come back not a day a half later. It made her blood boil, but Dumbledore insisted that he had made the connection secure. Despite her efforts, Hermione had not been able to do that, and so she was suspect of these efforts. 

_“Well, Mad-Eye set up a couple of curses against Snape in case he turns up there again. We hope they’ll be strong enough both to keep him out and to bind his tongue if he tries to talk about the place, but we can’t be sure. It would have been insane to keep using the place as headquarters now that its protection has become so shaky.”_

_The kitchen was so crowded that evening it was difficult to maneuver knives and forks._ Hermione pushed her food around her plate, looking carefully at each of her boys. For her and Fred, sleep was still something that evaded them. George, hour by hour, looked more and more like himself. His hair was patchy and he was having trouble with itching, but he was awake and talkative enough to complain of his lack of cake at dinner. Hermione felt his exhaustion and his unsettled stomach, and knew that keeping it down would have been an impossibility, and George knew it. Still, she welcomed his contrarian whinging. 

Midnight found her and Fred sorting books, carefully weighing titles against their need to travel lightly. Ron wandered in, and sat on the edge of the sofa. They had to work on horcrux related things late at night, as it sent Molly up into the boughs that her youngest son and Hermione were leaving Hogwarts. She was incensed that Harry was going, naturally, but she had more sway over and access to the others, and she made no bones about saying exactly what she thought. 

Running off of four days of no sleep, Hermione was about ready to let her have it. There was no time, though, as Percy had another missive in code just two hours ago, warning them that certain doom seemed certain imminently. They had to work quickly, and quietly. 

Both she and Fred were loathe to worry George, even as Hermione herself was still trying to heal from magical exhaustion. Such a condition was almost unheard of in foci, but the magnitude of the work they had done, coupled with the stress they were under, added to the lack of sleep, made recovery a hard row to hoe. Hermione was really trying, and in the meantime, she was sorting books. 

 _She threw_ Numerology _and_ Grammatica _onto one pile and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts onto the other._ Fred sat next to her on the floor, his skin still healing, as he poured through their books, books that were charmed to be on either set of bookcases, here or at home, depending on where they were. It was a spell the twins had worked out after opening the second shop, becoming tired of fetching and summoning books all the time. In this sense, it was a boon they sorely needed, for it made work faster. 

_What are you doing with all those books anyway?” Ron asked, limping back to his bed._

_“Just trying to decide which ones to take with us,” said Hermione. “When we’re looking for the Horcruxes.”_

_“Oh, of course,” said Ron, clapping a hand to his forehead. “I forgot we’ll be hunting down Voldemort in a mobile library.”_

_“Ha ha,” said Hermione, looking down at Spellman’s Syllabary. “I wonder . . . will we need to translate runes? It’s possible. . . . I think we’d better take it, to be safe.”_

“Speaking of safety…” Ron began, “We can’t hide the family. What’s to become of them when we leave?” 

Desperation raced through the bond, and it became clear that they needed a plan to keep people from asking questions about where the three youngest Weasley boys were, along with Hermione and Harry. This planning kept Hermione awake, even after they checked on George, who was dead to the world, and Fred helped her to dress her tired body in a cotton nightdress that should have made her feel cosy, but only made her feel vulnerable, exposed. 

After lying side by side in the bed for a few minutes that seemed endless, Hermione shoved the covers down and peered carefully at Fred. For as vulnerable as she felt, she also felt strengthened, just looking at him. He needed her. “You forgot your salves.” 

“In the morning, Hermione.” Fred reached for her, to pull her down on top of him and hold her close. But by the time he spoke, she had already climbed out of the bed they were sharing, for George was using theirs as a sickbed, and grabbed the salves from the haphazard mess on the dresser. Fred pushed up on his elbow as Hermione climbed back onto the bed, “You’re not going to sleep until I do this, are you?”

Hermione waved him off, the bottles floating in front of her as she cleansed her hands and lit her wand, leaving it in the sheets, the press of the mattress muffling the light, “I’ll do it. Your skin needs to heal.” She grinned up at him as she bade him with the press of her hand to lift his hips so that she might slide his bottoms down, “Aftercare is critical.”

“Heard that somewhere, have you?” The retort was somewhat ruined by the hiss Fred emitted as the cold first tonic met his warm skin. 

Hermione smoothed it in gently, knowing her hands were warm. The medicinal scent of the potions were tangy in the air. She planted her hand on Fred’s knee, and slid between them for better access to his surgical site. Hermione couldn’t help but let her fingers brush over the warmth of his skin, couldn’t help but feel the variance in textures.

It was an act of care, certainly, to very gently tend to his recovery. Hermione timed the applications with care, counting the seconds in brushes of fingers, and the blink of his eyes in the soft wandlight. She blew gently to hasten the drying process, her hair, messy and free, brushing over his thighs and stomach. 

Hermione again felt the sharp tinge of rejection when she watched his jaw tighten and his muscles clench as she brushed the final salve into Fred’s thigh. He gave a shuddering sigh, “I’m not rejecting you. You need sleep, and George needs—”

Hermione shook her head, “He’s completely knocked out so much so that we can’t feel his dreams. He doesn’t need me right now.” The vials and potions capped themselves and floated back to the dresser, “You do.”

Hermione shifted, hiking her nightgown up so that it was no longer bundled around her knees. Hermione, distracted by the sight of his arousal, forced her gaze to his when Fred breathed, “I always need you.”

The bond filled with emotion. There was so much that had happened in the last few days that that hasty and wildly intense coupling in their bed at the flat seemed to have involved three different people, three people who were forever changed, three people who had lived in a reality that somehow no longer existed. 

Hermione accepted this, and the truths she found within these facts. None of this, exactly, was about sex. She neither wanted nor sought release. She did not want to escape anything. She only wanted to affirm their bonds, to be there for one another. She just wanted to be there, for Fred. And yes, if she’d had to pick an amorous activity that made her feel powerful, it would probably be this one, but now she wanted this not only for herself, but for Fred, too. 

“Then let me love you.” Hermione whispered, his verbal consent filling her soul, shadows falling around them, giving into the urge to kiss that slowly healing flesh, to place her dry lips upon and it, and lavish it with attention before switching to Fred’s neglected thigh. Though there was no healing skin here, it was no more or less beautiful, no less worthy of devotion, because it was a part of him.

Though it was late, though they were tired, Hermione took her time after maneuvering for a better position. Perhaps it was because it was late, but time seemed to slow, to allow them to experience the fullness of each moment. Hermione luxuriated in every taste, every touch, every sensation. Her own body felt relaxed, her own arousal building slowly. Every movement, every cant of Fred’s hips, the curl of his fingers in the bedsheets, every press of her fingers, and pass of her tongue, seemed to Hermione to be sacred, something beyond the need for orgasm. 

It did not surprise her, for sex was often this way for them. They were hardly narrow-minded or mundane people in that, together, they had experienced nearly every emotion and moment in each other’s arms. But the moment, even for its differences, seemed achingly full, perhaps because of the things that were missing, and the things that had changed between all of them. 

Hermione knew the exact second she wanted to still, but scant seconds before it happened, she was caught unawares. Soft words had been exchanged between them, but Hermione still protested out of a sense of fairness for Fred when he gently hauled her upwards, and pressed her shoulders down into the pillows. 

“What’s good for the tom,”  Fred verbally shushed her with a kiss that gave him time to fumble with protection, promising her with gentle touches that what was good for the gander was good for the goose. “Is good for the queen.” With that, he hiked up her nightgown and covered his body with her own, surging without resistance into her core, the barrier between their bodies doing little to muffle their shared heat. 

Hermione gasped as they rocked together, their coupling gentle and thorough. In the dim wandlight, Fred’s blue eyes held fast to hers, as fast as he held his body to hers. Thankfully, the old bed beneath them creaked minimally, as their bodies merged, lips and tongues sliding heatedly together. As soon as he had left her body, Fred was moving back within her, fully and slowly. 

Her completion was not hard or fast, though it was as consuming as the kisses they shared. As her arousal had built, so too did her orgasm sneak up upon her, shocking in its depth and intensity. Fred wrung it from her body so totally that she was limp and relaxed, twitching languidly and clenching fully around him as they shared yet another deep kiss. 

Hermione felt so sheltered, so protected. There was a duality to Hermione’s vulnerability, because he was vulnerable to an equally profound degree. She protested when Fred began to pull away, to withdraw, and clenched down around him, begging with her body and her mind to stay, to always stay, never to…

And with that thought that Hermione’s mind could not complete, she began to weep openly, her body so replete that her soul felt safe enough to emerge from the hard protective shell that Fred, with his vulnerability towards her, had cracked. She sobbed brokenly, out of fear for him, love for him, out of fear for George, and love for George, and fear for herself. 

She sobbed because she had come close to losing everything that mattered to her. She sobbed because she’d sliced into his flesh without flinching, because he had thought of his brother and made him laugh by stealing her bra, even as George had been too weak to even lift his hand to brush against his very favorite, if they were being perfectly honest, portion of her flesh, which he did with shocking casualness and regularity. She sobbed because George had bled, and suffered, and she had not been there for him when he had very nearly slipped from the world. 

Had he gone, they would have gladly and gratefully followed, leaving so much undone. She sobbed because Fred and George were hurting and there was so little she could do. She cried because, had they gone, she would have willed herself to death within hours, and Hermione, someone who had always believed in a strong will to live, struggled with the change in self-perception that her own weakness had wrought. She cried because she’d had to be strong for them, all the while screaming and terrified inside. She cried because she knew she had not done enough, been strong enough, despite her best efforts. 

She sobbed, but she did not cry alone. They sobbed and clung and cried together, and that made Hermione cry all the harder. She cried herself to sleep, pressed to the bed underneath Fred, who even when he had slid free to take care of the condom, had nestled himself back against her thigh, his lips against her skin. 

* * *

The next day, Fred and George holed up together to discuss plans for the family, Hermione chipping in mentally when she could get away from wedding planning. Everywhere there was work to do, and having had a good night’s rest, she was expected to pitch in at full storm. It was as though Molly wanted to keep her mind off of George, and in doing so piled her with a million and one tasks. 

Hermione was even tasked with assisting Ginny in sorting wedding presences. Her Majesty the Bride was too busy preparing for her wedding, it seemed, to prepare for the wedding. The simple sorting of presents took all bloody day, and by the end of it, Hermione was laughing tiredly at the ear jokes George was telling in her head to keep her from bashing everyone she saw with a silver candlestick engraved with moving mermaids. 

Though never dirty, they had _never seen the place looking so tidy. The rusty caul- drons and old Wellington boots that usually littered the steps by the back door were gone, replaced by two new Flutterby bushes standing either side of the door in large pots; though there was no breeze, the leaves waved lazily, giving an attractive rippling effect. The chickens had been shut away, the yard had been swept, and the nearby garden had been pruned, plucked, and generally spruced up, although Harry, who liked it in its overgrown state, thought that it looked rather for- lorn without its usual contingent of capering gnomes._

When the relatives did arrive, Hermione saw that Arthur, even with magic, was struggling to manage the luggage. Ron rushed forward to assist him, and Ginny threw Fleur a murderous glance, simply for having the sin of parents who would not travel sensibly or carry their own cases.

_The Delacours, it soon transpired, were helpful, pleasant guests. They were pleased with everything and keen to assist with the preparations for the wedding. Monsieur Delacour pronounced everything from the seating plan to the bridesmaids’ shoes “Charmant!” Madame Delacour was most accomplished at household spells and had the oven properly cleaned in a trice; Gabrielle followed her elder sister around, trying to assist in any way she could and jabbering away in rapid French._

_On the downside, the Burrow was not built to accommodate so many people. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were now sleeping in the sitting room, having shouted down Monsieur and Madame Delacour’s protests and insisted they take their bedroom. Gabrielle was sleeping with Fleur in Percy’s old room, and Bill would be sharing with Charlie, his best man, once Charlie arrived from Romania._

Hermione tried to insist on going home. She reconsidered it when she realized that there was safety in numbers, and that soon, they would leave never knowing if they’d see their family again. To borrow a turn of phrase from Ron, Molly was being absolutely mental. She was full of “poor George’s” recovery, and made the whole thing such an issue that Hermione felt like a heel for even suggesting they go home and sleep in their own bed. 

Thank Merlin for Lee and Verity, who were running the shops. Business was not slow, but the shops were not glutted. People were again being cautious, feeling something in the air. Hermione took to popping in to check on things just to escape the Burrow. When she returned, she was summoned to assist with Gabrielle and Ginny with a dress fitting. 

Hermione spent the afternoon waving her wand to discuss the difference in a third of an inch difference in hem lengths. If that wasn’t bad enough, she was forced, literally, at wand point and a smile to fetch her own dress, and robes, a very pale purple meant to stand apart distinctly from the bridal party and flatter her paleness. They were gauzy and floaty, but were not baggy or long. They meant to hint and caress, flatter and suggest. 

She ended up half dressed with a measuring tape floating about her as Molly tailored her robes and dress, in a room full of willowy and sporty women. Hermione still thought her bra, though serviceable and possibly usable as a fishing net of some sort, to be far cuter than the designs the others flaunted, irrespective of the differences in size and shape. 

She felt no shame over her body. Her body was a tool of her will. It was strong, and healthy, and something that brought her warmth and comfort and pleasure. Sharing mental space with men who did not see things like her muffin top and the silvery streaks on her breasts and thighs as anything other than desirable had urged her to consider her own internalized judgement over the years, and slowly, she was working on it. Their input changed almost nothing, but it did expose her to different perspectives, which was always helping in evaluating one’s own thinking. 

What it did do, however, was expose the edges of her bonding sigil as she slipped the dress off and stepped into her trousers. The whole thing was hidden by the shape and curves of her body, but the edges were plain. Molly was respectful, naturally, and avoided looking at it in any obvious fashion.  Ginny asked to see it, knowing full well she’d be denied. Fleur resented any mention of Hermione’s relationships, because she felt, no matter the newfound thaw between them, that anyone so much as having a life infringed on her Big Day. 

They had a small cake for Harry’s birthday, at Grimmauld. As the family knew of Dumbledore’s continued existence, it was simple enough to congregate there with portkey and broomsticks. Harry, it was clear, was morose, having learned very quickly what it was to live in close quarters with a Headmaster who was not pleased. 

Hermione tried to have pity and empathy for him, but in her heart of hearts, she felt it a fair learning experience. It was clear that Harry’s close proximity to the man was changing some misperceptions in such a way that made Harry more aware of Dumbledore as a man, a very powerful and dedicated one, but also as a flawed human being. 

That night, when everyone was distracted with good food, Hermione and Ron accompanied Harry to his room. Hermione got right to her task of packing every single thing she thought Harry might need to survive of the hunt. She wasted no time in grabbing clothes, and shoes, and various magical items. 

Harry balked when she began to sort very quickly through his top drawer, ignoring entirely the selection of rather interesting materials. Hermione snorted inwardly. That hiding place would never have flown at the Burrow. 

“’Mione, what…?” Harry looked to Ron, who admitted that she had already done much the same to his bedroom, after, of course, Mum had railed at him to clean it up. Hermione had sped along the process with her wand, so he hadn’t cause to complain. 

“We’ve got to be ready to go.” Hermione whispered, hurrying around the room with single-minded focus. “The government is going to fall within days, and we’ve got to stay one step ahead of the jail cells and execution chairs with our names on them.” 

Harry blanched. He nodded. “I heard Papa and Dad arguing with Dumbledore last night. Dumbledore has stuff.” 

“And he won’t give it for the cause, will he?” Ron asked, well used to seeing other sides of the man that his best friend had venerated for so long. 

Harry shook his head. Dumbledore’s will was still sealed because the man was dead, but he could have written on the original copy, which he kept in his robes, thinking he was going to die that night, to open up in certain portions. Hermione knew by virtue of the facts that he had refused. 

That option ended, and it ended tonight. It ended now. Fred and George were already on their feet, heading their way, and Hermione met them coming down the stairs. George’s jaw was tight and Fred’s face was flush with heightened color. 

They asked for a word with Dumbledore, who granted it as though a king granting an audience. They settled down, and Hermione made something patently clear, “You gave Harry a task. It is your duty to provide him with the tools to complete it.”

Dumbledore sang an old tune. “I am not dead. I anticipated being no longer of this world, and I feel that I should come along with you to complete the task, and as such, the items we need will be with us, in my care.”

Hermione grew outraged, but it was the boys who held her back. It was Harry who spoke, “Professor, you agreed the night you came here to stay with Papa and Pads. I need you to keep that promise, so that I can go and do this.” Harry was honest, and Hermione saw the resolve in his face, “I need you to give me what we need to do this, because you will not be coming. The only reason you’re safe is because people think you to be dead.”

The argument went on this fashion for some time. In the end, with the twins standing over him, Dumbledore authorized a change to his will, backdated, of course. It was illegal, but made to look as though the section of his will had only been charmed to open thirty-one days after his passing.  

It came with the understanding, however tacit, that once they left this room, they would not come to Dumbledore again for help or insight. They were, he made it quite clear, on their own. Hermione wondered if he would ever get over his own need for grandiosity that he hid behind humility. Hermione knew he felt afraid, relinquishing unnamed objects. She understood fear, but she did not understand his propensity to dwell within it. 

Hermione watched as the parchment glowed, and muttered, “And now, we wait.” 

George replied, _I give Rufus two hours._

 _Not even a goodbye, a godspeed?_ Fred wondered, as they were summarily dismissed as Dumbledore picked up his book, and mused to Harry that he ought to ask Kreacher to save him a slice of cake, as clearly, his presence was neither wanted nor needed in any respect. Harry sighed at the passive-egressive slight, and they trooped to the dining room to swallow cake. Harry was allowed to spend the night, and took the chance to flee Dumbledore’s atmosphere with a smile, which enabled Hermione to sprint away with his luggage. 

* * *

In the end, Rufus arrived just as they were settling in for the night. The Delacours had been glad for one night of privacy with their daughter, and had a lovely dinner in the garden with lanterns and a beautiful meal, complete with a golden cake that looked akin a snitch, minus the wings. It turned out, according to Bill, that it was meant to be in the shape a wedding band. 

Hermione was left a book, Ron the Deluminator, Harry his snitch. But that was not all, for Rufus continued in the same tense and searching way, _“Dumbledore left you a second bequest, Potter.”_

_“What is it?” asked Harry, excitement rekindling. Scrimgeour did not bother to read from the will this time._

_“The sword of Godric Gryffindor,” he said._

_Hermione and Ron both stiffened. Harry looked around for a sign of the ruby-encrusted hilt, but Scrimgeour did not pull the sword from the leather pouch, which in any case looked much too small to contain it._

_“So where is it?” Harry asked suspiciously._

_“Unfortunately,” said Scrimgeour, “that sword was not Dumble- dore’s to give away. The sword of Godric Gryffindor is an important historical artifact, and as such, belongs —”_

_“It belongs to Harry!” said Hermione hotly. “It chose him, he was the one who found it, it came to him out of the Sorting Hat —”_

_“According to reliable historical sources, the sword may present itself to any worthy Gryffindor,” said Scrimgeour. “That does not make it the exclusive property of Mr. Potter, whatever Dumbledore may have decided.” Scrimgeour scratched his badly shaven cheek, scrutinizing Harry. “Why do you think — ?”_

_“— Dumbledore wanted to give me the sword?” said Harry, struggling to keep his temper. “Maybe he thought it would look nice on my wall.”_

_“This is not a joke, Potter!” growled Scrimgeour. “Was it because Dumbledore believed that only the sword of Godric Gryffindor could defeat the Heir of Slytherin? Did he wish to give you that sword, Potter, because he believed, as do many, that you are the one destined to destroy He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?”_

_“Interesting theory,” said Harry. “Has anyone ever tried sticking a sword in Voldemort? Maybe the Ministry should put some people onto that, instead of wasting their time stripping down Deluminators or covering up breakouts from Azkaban. So is this what you’ve been doing, Minister, shut up in your office, trying to break open a Snitch? People are dying — I was nearly one of them — Voldemort chased me across three counties, he nearly killed_ George Weasley _, but there’s been no word about any of that from the Ministry, has there? And you still expect us to cooperate with you!”_

_“You go too far!” shouted Scrimgeour, standing up; Harry jumped to his feet too. Scrimgeour limped toward Harry and jabbed him hard in the chest with the point of his wand: It singed a hole in Harry’s T-shirt like a lit cigarette._

_“Oi!” said Ron, jumping up and raising his own wand, but Harry said,_

_“No! D’you want to give him an excuse to arrest us?”_

Hermione could have killed him and hidden the body, but he had not yet truly hurt Harry. She was not all-powerful, and she did not want to give them another reason to send them all to The Kiss. 

_“Remembered you’re not at school, have you?” said Scrimgeour, breathing hard into Harry’s face. “Remembered that I am not Dumbledore, who forgave your insolence and insubordination? You may wear that scar like a crown, Potter, but it is not up to a seventeen- year-old boy to tell me how to do my job! It’s time you learned some respect!”_

_“It’s time you earned it,” said Harry._

_The floor trembled; there was a sound of running footsteps, then the door to the sitting room burst open and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley ran in._ Clearly, Fred and George had thought that best. Hermione mentally agreed. This exchange was over. 

_“We — we thought we heard —” began Mr. Weasley, looking thoroughly alarmed at the sight of Harry and the Minister virtu- ally nose to nose._

_“— raised voices,” panted Mrs. Weasley._

_Scrimgeour took a couple of steps back from Harry, glancing at the hole he had made in Harry’s T-shirt. He seemed to regret his loss of temper._

_“It — it was nothing,” he growled. “I . . . regret your attitude,” he said, looking Harry full in the face once more. “You seem to think that the Ministry does not desire what you — what Dumbledore — desired. We ought to be working together.”_

_“I don’t like your methods, Minister,” said Harry. “Remember?”_

And it was that the the Minister spun on his heel and left. Hermione knew as he left that there would be no more ‘friendly’ contact with their government. This meant, for the first time, that they stood alone. It would only get worse, for surely their parents would face their own trials. 

Harry went off to have cake, and they all followed. Hermione, in full realization of the danger they faced, could not force away the thought that came across her mind. Maybe, just maybe, Fred and George should stay with their families, to keep them safe, to keep her informed, so that she would know they were safe. 

She felt their shock and pain the second the thought floated away, before she might stop it. She tried to assure them that it wasn’t what she wanted, only what might be best. Before that thought was even finished, she felt George’s hand clamp around her wrist, and begin to haul her away from the sink where she was, in her turn, washing the dishes. 

Hermione cried out, “George! Mind your heart!” for he was pulling her outside, down the steps, in the direction of the barn.

His tone was full of barely suppressed anger and vitriol. “A walk across the garden,” though they were moving so fast that walking hardly qualified, “Is nothing in the face of what you just said.”

“I can’t be held responsible for an errant thought!” Hermione retorted, snatching her wrist back as they strode over the threshold of the warm barn, sweet smelling of hay and summertime, “And it might be best! Spread out, we could—”

“No.” It was Fred who insisted, cutting off both her mental explanation and her verbal entreaty, “That’s not happening. Save your breath.”

“You don’t just haul people around like a sack of flour, George!” Hermione wanted desperately to scream, but she would not stress his hearing. Still, her anger was evident, “I am only trying to do what’s best!”

“And what would you do, Hermione?” George replied, “Lie to us, deceive us, so that you and Ron and Harry might trot off into the distance? Because that’s a stupid plan, absolutely stupid.”

“There is not a ward you could put up that would hide you, not a place you could go that we wouldn’t find you.”

Hermione’s gaze snapped to Fred, after a declaration like that, “And why is that?”

“Because you don’t want to leave us behind, because you would want to be found, Hermione.” George cut right to her truth, “Admit it.”

Hermione knew one of them at least had to consider it, “I don’t want to leave you, either of you, but we’ve got to look at long-term strategy, we’ve got to—”

“Feeling scared of all of this loss and isolation is not a reason to cut us off, too.”

“So let’s get this straight.” Fred insisted, “We go together, get on with this, and come home. We’re stronger together, better together.”

“We don’t need Dumbledore, we don’t the Ministry.” George echoed their shared thoughts, “But we sure as hell need one another.”

“Yes!” Hermione exclaimed, “I need to know that you are both safe and well and—”

“Merlin, Hermione!” Fred cried, “What are we supposed to do?”

“Doesn’t the same go for you?”

Fred spat, “Sit home and knit?” 

“Well, no, of course not!” Hermione twisted her hands, “Of course the things you contribute are valuable. I never said they weren’t, only that they might be put to better use here, with our families. I can’t lose them.”

Fred promised, “You won’t.”

George asked, “Any other harebrained objections to the plans we need to work through?”

Hermione shook her head. 

Fred grinned, “Good, because we’ve diagnosed dear Ronnie with Spattergroit. No way we’re risking infection.” 

George clarified, “The ghoul’s going to be a stand-in, and nobody would come within meters of that. It’ll be a good cover.”

“I—”

“We know.”

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a lorry already. How are we going to do this?”

“One step at a time, Kitten.”

“Personally, the scariest thing on my plate’s not Voldemort, but this bloody wedding.” 

Hermione laughed, “What would I do—”

George’s reply was earnest, “That’s not even a question you need to ask, because you’re never going to find out.”

* * *

 _Hermione came inside to find Harry and Ron huddled in the kitchen, discussing not the_  so-called gifts _from Dumbledore, but rather a birthday gift. “Here’s your present. Unwrap it_ out _here, it’s not for my mother’s eyes.”_

_“A book?” said Harry as he took the rectangular parcel. “Bit of a departure from tradition, isn’t it?”_

_“This isn’t your average book,” said Ron. “It’s pure gold:_ Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches _. Explains everything you need to know about girls. If only I’d had this last year I’d have known exactly how to get rid of Lavender and I would’ve known how to get going with… Well, Fred and George gave me a copy, and I’ve learned a lot. You’d be surprised, it’s not all about wandwork, either.”_

Hermione spied the cover, and groaned inwardly. She knew, just by the feelings sneaking down the bond. It was something they would do, but it was clear that they were shocked Ron had fallen for such an obvious razzing hook, line, and sinker. It was clearly so awful that it was obviously wrong, but in his innocence, Ron had not caught on to that fact. 

Hermione could not help but interject, “It was a prank.” The younger boys looked at her, disbelief and shock on their faces, “Come on, don’t you think Fred and George would prank you with something like this? Do you honestly believe that such a book would actually help you get a date?”

Ron thrust the book at her, “Take a look if you don’t believe me.” 

Hermione did, and what she saw in the random page she opened it to made her blood boil and her soul overflow with shocked laughter. “You honestly believed that this would help? They meant you to see it as a prank!” Her eyebrows rose, “This is not a compliment to comprehensive sexual education.” 

“What do you mean?” Ron demanded, and Hermione realized that the poor idiot was genuinely confused, “I’ve read it cover to cover! You can’t take one sentence and—”

“Yes, I can.” Hermione declared, pulling out a chair at the table. “You’re both of age now. It’s important that you understand that—”

“Hermione!” Harry cried, looking at Ron and the extra cake they’d been eating and then back at her, imploringly, “Please, please, no.”

“I cannot allow you to go through life believing this trite slop to be genuine insight into romantic and sexual exploration.” Hermione was quite firm. “And I know this awkward. Would you rather I got the twins to correct the misinformation with which they plied you?”

“No, we’d rather you did nothing at all, and forgot we even had this conversation.” Ron asserted. After realizing this was an impossibility, he asked, “What’s so wrong, anyway, with it?”

“Well, seeing as how the first portion of this chapter tells you that men naturally desire more sex than women, that men are visual creatures who must guard their eyes, and that women are naturally less interested in sex and are more timid, I think quite a lot.” Hermione let the words fly forth from her mouth with the force of an incantation, “What they’re trying to do is tell you that women not liking sex is normal, and reenforce antiquated social norms! It’s 1997!” 

By the end of this recitation, Hermione had drawn the twins to the doorway with her lecturing and her emotional insistence. She brandished the book, “He didn’t figure out that this was a prank, you idiots!” 

George shuffled in that way of his, and Fred gave a bleat of shocked laughter as they exchanged a look. Clearly, they were wondering how Ron could have been so stupid. Hermione did not know, but what she did know was that such ignorance could not be left to fester. 

She knew, too, that her boys felt poorly and had only been trying to get him to laugh after he and Lavender had broken up. Their prank had come from their hearts. If Ron hadn’t been so innocent, it would have been sweet. 

Hermione gentled her tone for the idiots at the table, “If your companion doesn’t like what you’re doing you stop and you correct yourself. If they don’t like it, you’re donig something wrong! Merlin and Morgana.” 

Hermione swanned from the room, glad that her books were easily accessible. She went to the trunk and fetched no less than four books. Returning, she slammed them down on the table, and declared, “These are four very gentle introductory and elementary texts on relationships and sex. Read them.” 

“Shouldn’t we be focusing on the horcruxes?” Ron asked, “You gave us a reading schedule.”

“And now I’m changing it, so as to remove this filth from your brain.” Hermione took the purple book from the table, and glared at it, “This is only fit to be burned.” 

Harry glanced at the cover of one of the books, as Hermione flipped purposefully to the index of the book she’d taken upon herself to confiscate. “Ah, shouldn’t we be focusing on the war and not on, erm, _A Feminist Guide to Sexual Enlightenment_?”

“Listen to me. You want to survive the war and eventually have an orgasm facilitated by your own—” Hermione broke off from asking him a simple question, when he turned scarlet, “It’s not a wonder you’re blushing! Orgasm isn’t even in the appendix! Neither is interpersonal communication! Or—” 

“I knew you had more than one book!” Fred exclaimed, “Cough up, George. Two galleons, if you please, my good sir.”

Hermione laughed outright, then. “I said these were elementary texts. You think I’d let them anywhere near The Book?” Hermione slipped from the room, brushing past the two people just inside the doorway, “I don’t want to scare them, for Merlin’s sake.” 

Turning back in the doorway, Hermione noted, “It’s important to have an atmosphere of open communication, and I know talking to me would be weird, so do feel free to ask the twins. I’ll stay out of it.” 

“Christ, Hermione.” Harry cried, “If this is how you talk to me as an adult, I want to stay sixteen forever.” 

Hermione went to continue packing. All in all, she felt she had been very adult about the whole thing. Not once had she even so much as mentioned the wizarding magazines in his drawer, not even the one dedicated entirely to veelas. Hermione went to continue packing, only to be waylaid by Molly, who needed help curling ribbon. 

* * *

The wedding preparations were in full swing below them, but George was relegated to have a bit of a lie down by his mother, whom he was forced to obey out of fear that she just might murder him. Beneath her serene smile lurked promises of death if anything went wrong. And so, Hermione had brought him, hopefully for the last time, a lunch tray. 

Percy had been a good source of information this morning, and it was clear that things would be happening within in the next week, likely on Wednesday, a Ministry holiday. They were ready. Hermione set the tray on their desk, and opened the small container of pears. “Consider yourself lucky to not be down there. I’ve been organizing place settings and waitstaff for an hour.” 

“The injury was fully healed yesterday.” George grumbled. Watching her, his eyes took on a knowing glint, and his tone shifted, “What, exactly, are you thinking?”

“Molly said I had to bring you lunch. She didn’t say that you had to eat it, only that I should keep you company.”

“Interesting.” As her mind was made up and they knew it, Hermione watched wheels turning behind his eyes, “Come here.”

Biting back laughter, Hermione demurely sat on the edge of the bed. She knew full well what he meant, but was quite enthused with the idea of being a bit obtuse, “Here?”

“Hermione.” 

“Oh, all right.” Hermione stood then, and blinked owlishly, “Shall I go get the chess set?”

George shrugged, “Only if you want them to watch.” Clearly, she did not, because her smile only grew, “You’re lucky you’re such a goody-goody.”

“Oh, the things I get away with.” Hermione bent over George, planting her hand on  other side of the bed, close to his hip, but not touching him, and pressed her lips chastely to his for a scant moment, “Absolutely nobody believes the truth.”

George laughed, the sound emanating from deep within him, a warm chuckle that filled her soul. Gently, Hermione moved to straddle his thighs, their clothing disappearing with a flick of George’s wrist, save for the button up she was wearing of Fred’s, “That’s because you are a good girl, loathe as you are to admit it.” George’s hands skated up her back, over the soft plains of her shoulders, down over the curve of her waist, the swell of her hips, and the globes of her bottom as he spoke, “But see, you don’t need to, not if you don’t want to, because you have two dashing gentleman in your life to prove it.”

Hermione tried to lift her hips to move against him, move closer, but the firm grasp of George’s hands on her hips held her back. His tongue danced over her hear, the same side of the ear he had lost and regained, “Fred and I are of the opinion that actions speak louder than words. But don’t worry, your secret’s safe.”

Hermione was already panting as George laved her ear with attention before sliding his warm mouth down the column of her throat. Pleasure flooded through her as George parted her gently with his fingers to find her desperate, “Look at that…” Hermione watched as his eyes glittered, shivered as those fingers met first his gaze and then his lips, “Everything I even begin to want, you’ve already offered. I don’t even have to ask. But when I do…”

Hermione could no more stop herself from kissing him as she could stop the war from approaching. She could no more stop the twitches of pleasure that came from that action than she could stop using her position on his thighs to attend to herself. Even with the way George held her firmly, she moved her hips, never able to move enough, but willing to take what she might as a focus. 

“Shh, stop.” George pulled back, his heart pounding. Hermione gently pressed her hand to the wall of his chest, feeling the thump of his heart with her fingers, using that to force herself to still, luxuriating in the thrill of knowing that she could do it only because he had asked it of her.  George had asked this of her, and there was nothing, nothing, could or would not do for him. 

Hermione felt only immense power in admitting the truth, “There’s nothing of me that I wouldn’t give you.” She knew, as he did, that they weren’t simply talking about sex, even as hauled cleansing and steadying breaths into her lungs. They were talking, she knew, about how close they had all come to death, and what she would have done to forestall it. There was nothing of herself that she would ever consider holding back from him, not her being, not her magic, and certainly not her love. 

She knew that that went full circle, even through the simple action of the way George gently parted Fred’s shirt, his hands smoothing over the placket. There was nothing of him that he held back from her, not his heart, not his hopes and dreams and fears, not his life, and certainly not his passion. It was a fully equal and eternally connected circuit. They were one, in all the ways that mattered, not because they were the same, but because they were different. Strengths met weaknesses, need met offering, desire met satiation. 

George wasted no further time. His hands, now steady and powerful once again, supported the weight of her breasts as he lavished them with attention. Hermione’s eyes filled with new tears, tears of not only joy but also of the frustration that came with the agony of knowing that he would  take his time. As she had given him, so he would give her. She rejoiced in knowing that all she had to do in this moment was enjoy herself, knowing that she was in very good hands, in more senses than one. 

Silent, happy, overwhelmed tears slid from the corners of her eyes and made tracks down her face. George soothed her, even as his touch and his teeth spread fire through her body, “Oh, Kitten.You’re so strong. You’re so very strong, so very in control. You pulled Fred and I through a living hell these past few days, and you took care of us.”

George pulled his seeking fingers away from her aching breasts. They were red with the blunt edge of his teeth and the blush of her blood under her skin, pulled to the surface. Her very blood yearned for George. 

Hermione gave a watery laugh. She hadn’t felt very strong in those moments. She had come so close to shattering, so close to breaking, so close to crumbling. If only he knew…

“I do know.” George corrected her, “And you didn’t. You came so close, but you held yourself back, because I needed that from you. You held yourself back because Fred needed that from you. You were rock solid, for us, all three of us, because you know that you are the very center of our universe.”

Hermione felt warmth in her soul that had nothing to do with her arousal and everything to do with the fullness of their bonds. She felt that truth from both of her boys, and the overwhelming love that came her way made her shake. Hermione laughed, a shocking change in her emotions, when George pushed the shirt she was wearing down over her shoulders, a bundle of fabric, “Fred sure picked an ideal time to be moving tables.” 

Hermione leaned forward to thrust her wand into his hand. Somewhere, Fred was laughing. George didn’t need magical assistance, but in certain instances they were very muggle, and the extra pair of hands would have made the way the shirt moved to restrain her much more fun. In any case, when George asked, “Better?” she replied in the affirmative, feeling a bit less exposed, a bit more anchored to George. 

She felt supported, and very much on the edge, despite all of George’s efforts to push her right to the edge. He kissed her again, and returned himself to her prominent breasts, making her writhe on his lap in her want. Hermione changed the angle of her hips, and George returned his fingers to her depths, leaving the rest of her to the cold air. Hermione stifled a scream against his throat. It still wasn’t, would never be, enough. Hermione forced out a single word, “More.” 

George was out to induce a heart attack. Of that she was certain, because the bundle of fabric behind her disappeared, and he looped her hands around his neck, and steadied her as he did so, lifting her up. Hermione keened with the loss of restraint, and the sharp withdrawal of his hand against her. 

His hands were planted on the bed beside them. He wasn’t even gripping her hips or her knees, wasn’t doing anything to guide the angle or direct her. As though confused, he quirked a heated smile, “You know what to do.” 

Hermione held herself above him, her knees shaking with the effort, her eyes earnest, even after he had attended to practicalities. “Want—”

But he gave her no quarter, knowing that she would ask if she needed something, wanted something. She wasn’t exactly shy in that respect. Hermione realized that he was asking for this from her, and knew in her soul that there was nothing she would not give him. Confident in that knowledge and in her own power, Hermione bit her lip and sank down, slowly.

Even as she shook and moaned, it was George’s words, as they nearly had once before, that sent her flying over the edge, his voice raw and every bit a representation of his own anticipation, “Your pleasure, Kitten, is my pleasure.” _Your happiness, my happiness. Your joy, our joy. Don’t ask us to leave you. We’re staying together. Promise me that._

Awash with pleasure, Hermione caught George’s eye, responding to both his words and his thoughts, “Yes. Oh, _George_.”

Her body finally clenched as her hips stilled, everything swirling together. Her pinnacle was nearly blinding. Somewhere, she felt the puff of George’s breath against her as his heart thundered as his palm caressed her trembling spine. 

 _Good girl._ With that affirmation, those fingers dropped lower and stretched her, leaving her aching and digging her fingernails into his neck in a new wave of desperation and satisfaction, “Such a good girl.”

Hermione wasn’t even a little bit sorry when her fingernails drew blood. Neither, she knew, was George, though he protested later as he dressed for the wedding.

It was Fred who kissed her as he zipped her dress, and reminded his brother, “Good and bad isn’t a dichotomy, George. And anyway, they’re a subjective judgement of values.” 

Hermione laughed as she turned around, and whispered against Fred’s lips a secret she was quite sure George knew. “I’m a good girl, I am.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't kill Hedwig. Not sorry.


	19. 1997-1998 School Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know what this is... 
> 
> Don't worry, this isn't the end, although maybe it should be. I'm probably screwing the story up by writing more, but hey, you can always stop at the end of this chapter if you like. I sort of hope you won't, but...
> 
> Alright, 28k words....go...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think you need to read the TWs, please scroll to the bottom, now. I mean it, right now. Click the more notes button and do it. Please. I don't want to trigger people, but I also don't want to give the plot twists away. This seems a humane compromise. 
> 
> Fred is[mentally singing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f5spy3-9XM) that song in the shower.

Hermione snorted gently when Fred came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulled her close. _“When I get married,” said Fred, “I won’t be bothering with any of this nonsense. You can all wear what you like, and I’ll put a full Body-Bind Curse on Mum until it’s all over.”_

“You know,” Hermione agreed, tilting her head back in the summer sun to catch his smile, “I quite agree. Too bad our opinions are earrelevant according to my mother.”

“You made an ear pun!” George appeared at her elbow, toting a plate of nibbles. “Here, have a biscuit.”

Hermione took said biscuit. After that ceremony, she needed fortification. This morning had been utter bedlam and breakfast consisted of a hastily eaten boiled egg and cold tea. Still, Hermione saw the plethora of biscuits on the plate for what they were, “Don’t try to feed me up because Mummy’s been chipping away at your resolve and you feel guilty for your visions of white.”

“The color washes him out.” Fred noted, “Really, he should go with eggshell if anything.” 

“Shame, that.” Hermione added, “Eggshell would make you sallow. Poor George.” 

The crowded garden hid George’s fond glare from passersby. He really felt no shame over his wedding focused daydreams, not that anyone else wanted him to feel that way. When it came down to it, if George wanted a big do, they would have a big do. So long as there were these chocolate biscuits at their wedding, Hermione was certain they could come to a compromise. 

It was then that George’s expression shifted. “Look sharp, here she comes.” 

Hermione’s gaze moved in the direction of the jerk of George’s chin. She felt Fred stifle a sigh, and they cursed in unison internally. Hermione swallowed the last of her biscuit, hoping the sugar would fortify her. 

“She corned me earlier to congratulate me.” Hermione whispered this on an undertone, watching as Muriel’s arrival was not impeded by her frequent complaints of age and discourtesy. The crowds parted for her like the red sea, the affectation of a cane lending itself not to improved mobility, but rather to a threatening air. No one wanted to get bashed in the foot or the shin with her implement. Really, it spoke more to power than the intended nod towards age and frailty. 

Fred stepped away, and swiped George’s wine glass. “Muriel said something nice?”

“Indeed not.” Hermione faked shock, “She said I was consistent. My ankles are still too skinny, and my bosom is still indecorous.”

George arched an eyebrow and snatched the glass back before Fred could drain it all. “High praise.” 

Hermione watched as Muriel approached, and knew they had mere seconds left. “From her, I think you might be right.” 

“I would remind you,” Muriel Prewitt began without preamble, “That today is your brother’s wedding day, gentleman, and that excessive drinking is not becoming.” 

“ _I wish old Uncle Bilius was still with us, though; he was a right laugh at weddings_ …” Fred began, knowing that Hermione would pick up the thread of the conversation. Muriel hated her brother’s antics. They had never gotten along. 

Muriel went puce. Fred’s work was done. She should know better than to come after George. Right now, Fred was of the inclination that anyone bothering George would be totally annihilated. After the shock and the terror that had come with nearly losing George, Fred and Hermione were as one on that score. 

_“Wasn’t he the one who saw a Grim and died twenty-four hours later?” asked Hermione._

_“Well, yeah, he went a bit odd toward the end,” conceded George._

Muriel looked so angry that it was amazing. Fred went all in, knowing that Muriel would say nothing in response. All day she had been making snide comments, and this was her comeuppance. Harry and Ron, sensing the impending explosion, hastened over from where they had been sticking close to Sirius. Naturally, it was not Harry that they saw, but Cousin Barny Weasley. 

 _“But before he went loopy he was the life and soul of the party,” said Fred,_ stepping over towards Hermione to include his younger brother and Harry _. “He used to down an entire bottle of firewhisky, then run onto the dance floor, hoist up his robes, and start pulling bunches of flowers out of his —”_

_“Yes, he sounds a real charmer,” said Hermione, while Harry roared with laughter._

_“Never married, for some reason,” said Ron._

_“You amaze me,” said Hermione._

_They were all laughing so much that none of them noticed the latecomer, a dark-haired young man with a large, curved nose and thick black eyebrows, until he held out his invitation to Ron and said, with his eyes on Hermione, “You look vunderful.”_

_“Viktor!” she shrieked, and dropped her small beaded bag, which made a loud thump quite disproportionate to its size. As she scrambled, blushing, to pick it up, she said, “I didn’t know you were — goodness — it’s lovely to see — how are you?”_

It was the perfect conclusion to the interlude with Muriel. She really was quite happy to see Viktor, but more than that, she was happy to bedevil Aunt Muriel, who ate up tabloid stories of her supposed romantic liaisons with morbid glee. 

Viktor, of course, was quite happy to see her. Sensing Muriel’s morbid curiosity, George began to make noises about finding a table, and the whole crowd of them headed off to find a spot to congregate that did not include a disapproving woman muttering about Russia. As they walked, Viktor gave her some startling news. 

“The international floo, Hermione, was troublesome.” He smiled, and it told Hermione everything she needed to know. The boarders were being locked down, slowly, so slowly so that by the time no one could come in or leave, there would be no real awareness of the whole thing. It explained, entirely, why Krum was hours late. 

Telepathically, they knew that they had to get information out of Krum, but the easy manner in which they sat down evaporated entirely as Viktor paled, and then scowled. Hermione set down her glass of champagne on the table and sank with grace into the wooden chair that was bedecked with golden ribbon, Fred across from Viktor and George beside her, so as to see the whole encounter from every angle. They needed to find out more about the borders. 

 _Krum glowered over the top of his drink, watching Xenophilius, who was chatting to several warlocks on the other side of the dance floor._ With a swiftly placed kick from Hermione, Harry did the dirty work and began to inquire as to Viktor’s shift in mood. Hermione decided that she would be the silently supportive friend, and the boys would ostensibly turn their attention to the conversation only when not preoccupied by the blonde cousins of Fleur who were keen to make friends. 

_“Because,” said Krum, “if he vos not a guest of Fleur’s, I vould duel him, here and now, for vearing that filthy sign upon his chest.”_

_“Sign?” said Harry, looking over at Xenophilius too. The strange triangular eye was gleaming on his chest._ Hermione could not quite place it, though she knew she had seen it before, somewhere. _“Why? What’s wrong with it?”_

_“Grindelvald. That is Grindelvald’s sign.”_

_“Grindelwald . . .”_ Hermione mulled over the word, the name, and ventured after a blinding moment of clarity,  _“The Dark wizard Dumbledore defeated?”_

_“Exactly.” Krum’s jaw muscles worked as if he were chewing, then he said,“Grindelvald killed many people, my grandfather, for instance. Of course, he vos never poverful in this country, they said he feared Dumbledore — and rightly, seeing how he vos finished. But this” — he pointed a finger at Xenophilius — “this is his symbol, I recognized it at vunce: Grindelvald carved it into a vall at Durmstrang ven he vos a pupil there. Some idiots copied it onto their books and clothes, thinking to shock, make themselves impressive — until those of us who had lost family members to Grindelvald taught them better.”_

_Krum cracked his knuckles menacingly and glowered at Xenophilius. It seemed incredibly unlikely that Luna’s father was a supporter of the Dark Arts, and nobody else in the tent seemed to have recognized the triangular, runelike shape._

_“Are you — er — quite sure it’s Grindelwald’s — ?”_ The question was punctuated with the cheery giggles of young women who were now approaching. This plan, Hermione thought, was going swimmingly. 

 _You’re not the one having to deal with being a circus freak!_ George internally shuddered, his mind recoiling at the thought of listening to yet more of Fleur’s cousins test out the boys and their resistance to the thrall. 

Hermione did not blame the girls for their interest, and in fact hoped that they would one day find men like her own for their own. A man who could see beyond the thrall and still treat them like human beings was a man no veela would give a knock back. 

_Hurry up, would you? Mum’s glaring!_

Hermione shot Fred quite a look for being so dramatic, and that seemed to help Molly make up her mind about marching over here and smacking the twins, whom she thought to be under thrall, and also encouraged the French witches. There was nothing like a man who was flirting with them at the consternation of their ladyfriend, at least at a wedding, where no real harm was meant. 

Really, did the boys have to make the plans so complicated? Hermione made a sympathetic noise and turned her attention to Krum, whose hands were shaking in his lap underneath the golden tablecloth that fluttered in the warm breeze around the table. 

_“I am not mistaken,” said Krum coldly. “I valked past that sign for several years, I know it vell.”_

_“Well, there’s a chance,” said Harry, “that Xenophilius doesn’t actually know what the symbol means. The Lovegoods are quite…unusual. He could easily have picked it up somewhere and think it’s a cross section of the head of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack or something.”_

Viktor’s eyes widened as he looked toward Hermione, and then back at Harry as though he needed a stiff drink. _“The cross section of a vot?”_

 _“Well,”_ Harry hastened, _“I don’t know what they are, but apparently he and his daughter go on holiday looking for them…”_

Viktor was not bemused. 

_“That’s her,” he said, pointing at Luna, who was still dancing alone, waving her arms around her head like someone attempting to beat off midges._

_“Vy is she doing that?” asked Krum._

_“Probably trying to get rid of a Wrackspurt,” said Harry, who recognized the symptoms._

_Krum did not seem to know whether or not Harry was making fun of him. He drew his wand from inside his robes and tapped it menacingly on his thigh; sparks flew out of the end._

Hermione knew what she had to do. “Viktor, would you care to dance?” 

He brightened, “Vot? Yes! That vould be nice. This is not suitable wedding discussions.” 

And so they headed off, taking a spin around the dance floor. The charmingly elegant French girls swanned up to Fred and George, and soon, they too, were on the dance floor. Hermione tuned out their inquisitive questions and their charming banter with ease. Her poor gentlemen were utterly off their game with flirtation and coquettishness. 

Hermione pondered the idea that perhaps she should develop her talents as a young ingénue. The responses she got to that fleeting idea rather put paid to that idea. It seemed that even in teasing and games, her beloveds preferred that she be uniquely herself and remain an equal partner in whatever ways she saw fit. Still, she filed away the wide-eyed innocent archetype away in her back pocket for amorous purposes. She knew she could easily adopt that frame of reference.  

 _Excuse me?_ From over on the edge of the dance floor Hermione saw Fred crack up, and cover it with a witty observation to his dance partner. 

George had a little less luck, covering his own bleat of laughter with a quick spin in the center of the floor, leaving his companion to compliment his moves. _On what planet? Mars? Pluto?_

 _Shut up._ Well, comparatively innocent. There were limits to her stagecraft. 

Hermione had quite a nice time chatting with Viktor, who seemed to know what she did not say. “I vill expect another wedding invitation soon, vill I not? You did not mention so in your letters.”

Hermione grinned, “It certainly seems that way.” It was nice, for a long moment, to think of her wedding, and not of the war that stood in between this wedding and the next. 

“This,” He looked down at the hand that was clasped upon his shoulder. “I’m very glad to know.”

After they parted, Hermione wandered seemingly aimlessly through the tent. She came upon Mr. Dodge, and felt victory racing through her veins. It was short lived, of course, because Muriel wasted no time in plonking herself down at the table. She was already half-drunk, having nursed a drink all through the ceremony that never seemed to deminish. 

“Best to look the other way, dear.” Auntie Muriel seemed sympathetic to Hermione’s supposed plight. “French girls, you know.”

Hermione sniffed, not entirely sure why this potentiality would garner the old dragon’s sympathy. 

Dodge desperately dove to return to their original subject. Hermione was quite happy to learn whatever he might reveal about Dumbledore, who knew more than anyone about this war. It was to be hoped that, in the security of his supposed death, that people who had known him in his early life would be more forthcoming. 

All Hermione had to do was sit back and listen. Of course, Aunt Muriel changed the subject irrevocably and would not let her quiz Dodge about Dumbledore. Back when Sirius had been battling for custody of Harry, Dumbledore had apparently made a case that he should go to Lily’s sister, who had a baby of like age, Dudley. It had never flown, and Sirius had bundled the baby home that night, and never let him out of sight. This was not a truth publicly known, however. However, to learn that Dumbledore had attempted to physically remove Harry from Sirius’s care made her rage. Was there nothing that man would not attempt?

“It seems to me that Black has done a fine job of raising Harry, though it is a shame he isn’t here today.” Dodge mused, “Off for the summer with Lupin, no doubt?” 

Hermione demurred. It was Auntie Muriel who shot off at the mouth.  “Black treats the boy too much like a stand-in for Regulus, if you ask me.”

“Aunt Muriel.” Hermione ventured, “He lost his brother in very mysterious circumstances.” 

“Ah, that’s what you think!” Auntie Muriel swigged champagne, sloshing down her chin, “I still say Walburga killed him! There were whispers of a reconciliation between Regulus and Sirius, and Walburga had struck Sirius from the tapestry. Regulus was her heir, Regulus Arcturus Black, untainted by his homosexual, blood-traitor brother and his half-breed lover.” 

“Walburga was a very sick woman.” Dodge asserted. “Could you imagine a mother truly killing her own child?”

For her part, Hermione could not even fathom corporal punishment, let alone coldblooded murder of a child. She knew that she herself would stop at nothing to give her child a chance at a good life, but then again, Walburga had not been the best of mothers. Married off to her own relative via an arranged union, she had never learned or wanted to see beyond the warped views of the world that had permeated her house. 

“You know they say he got cold feet and tried to leave You Know Who’s service—” Muriel chattered, sipping yet more drink as Dodge made a startled sound. “I say that Walburga did it.”

But Hermione’s mind was spinning. She had never heard much relating to Reg’s death. It was something that was never discussed, not ever. Hermione dove for information, “How did he die?”

“No one knows. No one even found a body, nor his identifier.” Dodge began. He noted Hermione’s confusion and continued, “Their heir of a house is usually given some jewelry, a signet ring, or something akin to that which serves the same function.”

“Lockets.” Muriel noted, “Don’t you know anything, Elphias? The heir gets a locket in the Black family, until he’s twenty-one or his father pops his clogs, wherein he gets a signet ring. You never did pay attention to anything.”

Hermione’s mind was back in that horrible cave, even as the conversation flowed around her. A locket, central in the memories that Dumbledore had shared with Harry swum in her mind. She had seen another locket, a gold locket on the bottom of a glowing cauldron. RAB. That one had said RAB. It had not been a horcrux. 

How could they have been so stupid? That locket, the key to everything, was now at the bottom of the sea. It hadn’t been a horcrux, but maybe Regulus had left a clue, or something, a note, even. Hermione was awash in terror, her heart pounding as she heard, “…beautifully engraved with initials of the child…”

Hermione blurted, “This would have have his initials engraved?” Hermione righted herself and hauled in a breath, “Reg’s locket, I mean?”

“Well, how else would they know to whom it belonged?” Aunt Muriel lectured. “Not of course, that Walburga could do anything to really change primogeniture for all the pomp she went about flaunting the boy. It must have been a nice change from the usual treatment.” 

“Historically, lockets began with Salazar Slytherin.” Dodge informed her, “His had an ’S’ upon it, according to history, with a great many jewels. Who knows?” He adjusted his fez very carefully, as though ashamed to be a pureblood himself, “Perhaps someone decided to give their son a locket and wanted justification for the choice rooted in pureblood history.” 

Relief rushed through Hermione as Fred reminded her with his own memories that the locket in the bottom of the basin had not been encrusted with anything. It had been a plain golden color, rendered incandescent by the effect of long-term potions exposure. Had there been gems imbedded within it, George continued, they would have stood out. 

“Dumbledore wanted to take the child from Sirius, and everyone knew it.” Muriel got back on topic, glaring at Hermione for having the gall to interrupt with stupid questions, “Some even supported it. Dumbledore wanted him raised by muggles, locked away from our community.” 

_“How do you — ?” croaked Doge._

_“My mother was friendly with old Bathilda Bagshot,” said Auntie Muriel happily. “Bathilda described the whole thing to Mother while I was listening at the door.”_

_Muriel swigged yet more champagne. The recitation of these old scandals seemed to elate her as much as they horrified Doge._

_“And I’ll tell you something else,” Muriel said, hiccuping slightly as she lowered her goblet. “I think Bathilda has spilled the beans to Rita Skeeter. All those hints in Skeeter’s interview about an important source close to the_ Boy Who Lived _— goodness knows she was there all through the_ custody _business, and it would fit!”_

_“Bathilda would never talk to Rita Skeeter!” whispered Doge._

Before Hermione could interject with yet more questions, there came a tap on her shoulder. It was George, apology written across his face for interrupting. 

Aunt Muriel chortled, “I’d not countenance it, Hermione, that I can tell you.” 

Hermione hauled George away. George whispered furiously, “The Deathly Hollows. It’s a symbol for the Hollows. Fred and I just had a conversation with Xeno. He had no idea what we were on about, and spilled the beans.” 

Mentally, he told her everything they had discovered. It had not been much, because Luna had been bitten by a gnome and her father had switched tracks in response. “Fred’s doing everything to keep him and Krum apart.”

Hermione did everything but lift her skirts and run as the inevitable altercation moved closer. Such an altercation was hardly thinkable. Viktor was rightly incensed and Hermione knew Xeno was sharper than he looked. He was a man who had seen war, buried his wife, and stood against the tides of society. George, even now, was stepping between the men, but not even Weasley wit could hold back either Viktor or Xeno. Someone was seconds from screaming in the other’s face, and Hermione did not know which man it would be to kick off first. 

 They were weaving through the merry crowd that had spilled off the dance floor when the atmosphere grew even more tense. _In that moment, something large and silver came falling through the canopy over the dance floor. Graceful and gleaming, the lynx landed lightly in the middle of the astonished dancers. Heads turned, as those nearest it froze absurdly in mid-dance. Then the Patronus’s mouth opened wide and it spoke in the loud, deep, slow voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt._

_“The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.”_

_Silence spread outward in cold ripples from the place where the Patronus had landed. Then somebody screamed._

_Harry and_ Ron _threw themselves into the panicking crowd. Guests were sprinting in all directions; many were Disapparating; the protective enchantments around the Burrow had broken._

George was at their side in a scant second. Hermione gripped her wand and her beaded bag, and they shared a single glance that held a lifetime of training and preparation. They had to move. They had to get to Harry and Ron. Everything came down to this moment. Their whole childhood flashed in front of Hermione’s eyes. She would know, soon, if everything they were and everything they had ever possessed had been enough. 

Hermione heard herself calling out for Ron. She held tight to Harry, and let Fred buffer their bodies as George searched frantically for Ron. How like him to get lost in a sea of gingers. Hermione could barely think beyond getting to Ron. 

 _And then Ron was there. He caught hold of Hermione’s free arm, and felt her turn on the spot; sight and sound were extinguished as darkness pressed in upon_ them _; all_ they _could feel was Hermione’s hand as_ they were _squeezed through space and time, away from the Burrow, away from the descending Death Eaters, away, perhaps, from Voldemort himself. . . ._

 _“Where are we?” said Ron’s voice._ Noise exploded around them as though a sound barrier had popped, and indeed one had. 

It was Fred who answered. “Tottenham Court Road,” keeping his voice low. They had made the mistake of landing in the midst of the crowds on the pavements, but they knew enough to know that they’d blend well enough here. The stream of people hid them well. 

Ron balked. Muggle London was unfathomable to him, and even compared to his fear of Voldemort, this seemed yet more terrifying. 

A woman jostled into him, and scowled, “Fucking tourists! Keep moving!” 

Ron startled, but it was George who clamped a hand on his shoulder and called out, “Keep moving, keep moving. We’re going to miss the play!” 

By referencing a play, it gave some credibility to their costumes. At least Fred and George had eschewed wizarding robes for suits, the hot weather not lending itself to wearing both. In true old fashioned diffidence, Ron and Harry had simply worn robes, largely because Molly had a bit more say over their sartorial decisions. 

They walked quickly until they stumbled upon an alley. Hermione had already explained her beaded bag once, but apparently the younger men had not been listening, for they goggled as she thrust clothing their way with the demand that they change. 

The cloak provided them privacy to change. Hermione stripped out of her lilac dress, and tugged on jeans and a thin shirt and jumper. She then kept watch in turn, as everyone else changed, her silky and carefully styled hair pulled up into a messy knot. Hermione felt more confident in her boots, but she had only just begun to internalize that this was real, that they were now on the run, and that their entire world was under siege. 

And yet, nothing here had changed, not even the drunks on the corner and the man preaching about sinners on the opposite corner. Their world remained the same was hers was hanging on the edge of oblivion. It seemed almost unfathomable, and highlighted the vulnerability of this illusion of safety. The muggle community could only come up with excuses for all of the attacks for so long. And yet, Tottenham Court Road was full of carefree London life. She desperately wanted to believe the fiction that all would be well, that this was a bad dream, but the truth remained the truth, though she could not see it here. She felt it, she knew it, and that was enough to keep her from buying into the atmosphere, which even now was tinged with the terror of the truth. 

When they emerged back into the street, Hermione was accompanied by four men, two who strode forward, seeing everything and acting like they owned the earth, and the other two goggling like tourists. It was then that Hermione realized how limited Harry’s exposure to muggle communities had been, his love of television notwithstanding. 

It was almost humorous to watch Ron and Harry navigate the basics of muggle society. Hermione pointedly ignored the cat-calling coming her way, doing nothing to encourage the inebriated idiots on the opposite side of the street. Ron didn’t know enough not to call attention to their lewd remarks.

 “Ignore it.” Hermione hissed. 

Cat-calling was not a part of magical society. Sexism and misogyny were as prevalent in their society as pureblood supremacy and muggleborn prejudice, but cat-calling was not very common. After all, people didn’t really walk places in magical settings, and when a man did see a woman out of the home, it was frequently assumed that the man in question knew her father, brother, or husband and offered her his silence in public spaces not as a gesture of respect for her humanity, but for her male relative’s control and masculinity. It was the  patriarchy, every bit the same, just the opposite side of the coin. 

Ron spluttered. Hermione wasn’t stupid enough to know that it would go unavenged. The bus that sped by kicked up all manner of sludge onto the drunk uni student, whose friends began to howl. Their beers shattered on the pavement as they tripped into the street. 

Hermione sighed. _That’s enough!_

Twin sighs echoed in her mind. Fred pulled open the door to a cafe, and Hermione ushered the younger boys inside behind George, who asked for a booth. Ron was gobsmacked when Hermione ordered a round of cappuccinos, minus one for Harry who was ensconced under his cloak. 

The plan was simple. They needed to get to the countryside. There was a portkey in her bag, but they simply needed to give it enough time so as to shake any trackers. There had been a reason, after all, that Harry had been polyjuiced at the wedding. 

 _A pair of burly workmen entered the café and squeezed into the next booth. Hermione dropped her voice to a whisper._ She had to keep up a cover. George had already made the determination that they were staring at Death Eaters. Under the table, so as not to scare Harry or Ron, Hermione palmed her wand, and waited for the signal from Fred. It came a scant second before she expected it. 

Hermione dove across the bench, driving Ron to the floor. Spells flew all around them. The light of the spellfire in the diner blinded them, even as walls fell around them and appliances exploded. It took but two minutes for the two Death Eaters to be sprawled on the littered floor.  

Ron got to his feet, shaking his arms to regain feeling in them. Harry picked up his dropped wand and climbed over all the debris to where the large blond Death Eater was sprawled across the floor.

 _“I should’ve recognized him, he was there the night Dumbledore died,” he said,_ keeping up the story, knowing they could hear everything _. He turned over the darker Death Eater with his foot; the man’s eyes moved rapidly between Harry, Ron, and Hermione._

_“That’s Dolohov,” said Ron. “I recognize him from the old wanted posters. I think the big one’s Thorfinn Rowle.”_

_“Never mind what they’re called!” said Hermione a little hysterically. “How did they find us? What are we going to do?”_ Certainly, her carefully constructed plans were up in the air now that they were so easily found. 

 _Traced._ George supplied archly. _They’ve traced one of us._ Hermione agreed, but did not yet bring this out into open conversation. She knew that the spoken word made them vulnerable. Who knew if they had an audio feed going back to Voldemort? Hermione was glad her boys had the foresight to be silent. 

 _“Lock the door,”_ Harry _told her, “and Ron, turn out the lights.”_

_“What are we going to do with them?” Ron whispered to Harry through the dark; then, even more quietly, “Kill them? They’d kill us. They had a good go just now.”_

Hermione shared a quick interlude with the men who had a deeper understanding of what they were fighting. There was no choice. There was no choice. Kill or be killed. Let the absence send a message to their master. Hermione did not trust the urge to let them go. She knew they were lethal, and Dumbledore’s problem of not accepting people on the basis of the choices they made could not and would not be continued. 

True to the plan the triad made on the fly, Hermione let Harry and Ron banter as they cleared up the cafe, and bickered with Ron over his tight jeans. She heard the smile in his voice when she told him to shove it or enlarge his own jeans like a big boy. 

It was during that lighthearted exchange that Fred wiped the memories of anyone there, and sent them on their way, as though they had enjoyed a lovely meal. The waitresses and cooks were sleepily propped up at their stations. Tomorrow morning, they would read all about a freak construction accident at the new building site across the way, and would sigh mournfully for the two off-duty construction workers, who while drunk, had fallen into a wood chipper left there overnight to compact building materials. 

Ron grinned at George when he bustled through the door, looking as cool as a cucumber. “Are you sure we shouldn’t have propped them up in a booth?”

George shrugged, opening the door for Fred, who was, Hermione saw, incinerating wands with the brush of his fingers, the ashes littering the pavement. 

It was Hermione who replied, “They’ll believe they got lost quite easily. They might come here, though, so we should hurry.”

Ron cleared his throat, and clicked the Deluminator. Hermione had the sense to realize that they were likely being tracked, so she wasted no time in revising her portkey plan. The car, unfortunately, was at the Burrow. She had not thought to put it in the bag this morning, and it remained hidden. Thereby, they did the only thing they could do. 

They raced onto a bus, blending in as best they could, and made their way hastily to the station. Hermione praised God that somebody’d had the sense to ensure that Ron had a muggle passport. Then again, it could have been one of the many they’d fabricated. They were in the queue for the train to Paris when Hermione revealed their plan. 

When she did, though, Harry protested loudly. “We can’t just leave the ministry to fall!” He looked down the queue, and grabbed Ron’s arm, “We’re not leaving, not running scared.”

“The boarders are going to close.” She hissed, “And we need to be outside of magical Britain to break down the trace they got on one of us. Then and only then will we be able to move undetected. Until then, we’re muggles.” 

As they waited in the line, Hermione looked over her shoulder. There were two men, one reading  _The Times-Picayune,_ and another waiting for his turn at a phone. Hermione kept her eyes clapped on them as she made good effort towards looking like a bored traveler.  Hermione felt rather confident that they could move onward once they broke the trace. They knew that they needed to find Slytherin’s locket.

Hermione could not quell an irrational fear that maybe it was buried at the bottom of the sea with Regulus’s own. Her boys insisted that if she could not trust her own memories, that theirs would suffice. They would not let her distrust what she knew, even when doing so was only logical. They could trust what she had learned in the ductwork, and what they had all seen with their own eyes. 

“Where do we go from here?” Hermione muttered, staring down at the ticket that was now in her hand as they waited for their departure. “Where do we go?” This was not the flight into war that they had expected, and so much was left up in the air. All the long-term planning they had done did nothing to solve the problem of just how to get started. They had planned originally to leave from Grimmauld, but that was not even a remote possibility. 

It was Fred who spoke what both he and George had independently concluded, and agreed amongst themselves. “Love…” They were sitting on chairs in St. Pancras as they waited for the train, but the sympathy in his voice cut through the din of the crowds, “We need to go to Crawley. There’s no one to give your Mum and Dad the signal, and while we’re there, we could regroup.”

Hermione barely let him finish speaking before she denied the possibility, “We agreed that your parents would send a patronus. Going there—”

“Hermione—” George ventured, “There’s no way of knowing if Death Eaters have shown up at their door, if they got the message. You said that cutting them out was the best path, and up until this point, I agreed.”

Fred folded up his paper, the headlines declaring that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was still being hotly debated in Congress. He looked archly at his bondmate, “For the record, I never did.”

“But the fact remains that we need to go there.” George explained, “It’s the only safe place we can get to right now, without magic.”

“They’re not going to be looking for us.” Hermione posited, knowing that their ability to hide under the radar had held this far, and that, while everyone knew she was an anchor, they did not know the identity of her bonded, “We just have to keep Harry—”

“Are you mad?” Harry blurted, “You do realize that if I’m the top of his hit list, then you three are two, three, and four, in whichever order you like?”

“Now is not the time for dramatics, Harry.” Hermione declared, staring down her nose at the young man, “He doesn’t even know enough to be looking for George or Fred. He thinks it’s you and Ron, you know.”

“I say we go to your parents, figure out the trace, and get moving.” Ron looked around and it was all Hermione could do not to remind him to try to blend, “At the very least you can make sure they’re safe, right? Without any doubts or worries.” 

And it was Ron, skillfully playing on her emotions, who enabled Hermione to consent to this harebrained scheme. They were either putting her parents in the crosshairs or they were ensuring they would live. They would be no way to know until it was done. And there was nothing left but to do it. 

Hermione lifted Harry’s rucksack and extended it. “I’m not carrying your bags on the train.” 

* * *

It was completely dark when they began to pad across her parents back garden.

They used every bit of their training to make their way here and cover their tracks, even going so far to shake a tail by diving onto the train to Paris and diving off again. Still, Hermione felt a prickle of disease when she entered into the kitchen, pitch black and still with the depth of night. The house was so still that she wondered if her parents had already fled. 

The unmistakable click of a safety being removed echoed in the stillness. 

Light flooded the room as her father switched on the ceiling fan. It was, Hermione saw, her father with the gun. She couldn’t be right all of the time. She simply knew her mother was the better shot and had made the assumption based on those facts. In the end, she supposed which of her parents was holding the gun hardly signified. 

Even seeing her standing there, her father did not lower the gun. He was a smart man. 

Hermione smiled, and said, “I don’t know why you persist in thinking that I have a death wish. Really, the help’s not necessary.” 

With that, her father lowered his weapon and sighed, “You couldn’t just say it, could you? I thought you were one of those polyjuiced people.” 

“Maybe I do have a tiny death wish.” Hermione smiled, and felt the boys edging closer now that she had given the all clear and they knew that everything was fine. 

Hermione tied up her heavy hair once again as four men entered the kitchen. Harry gulped as he saw the gun on the counter. He knew they were not commonplace in muggle homes. Ron had never seen one before, clearly, so he paid it no mind. She wondered if he even knew what he was seeing. 

Hermione fleetingly wondered what both Harry and Ron would make of the fact that the triad they knew and loved had been handed loaded guns when they’d barely entered their teens. Even now, both of her boys were armed. Hermione chose not to carry a gun, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to use one. She thought that the luxury of not being armed would soon end. 

Hermione made short work of informing her parents of recent events. Within moments, her parents were sitting at the table, her mother roused from a heavy sleep to join them at the table. Hermione watched as Mum served Harry and Ron lemon cake, thinking of a long-ago night that she had gotten caught sneaking in from a silly joyride. How long ago and innocent those days seemed. 

After a little bit of discussion, it was decided that her parents would stay, and pretend to go on as normal here. Hermione knew Death Eaters would show up, but until they did, her parents wanted to stay. Hermione agreed that if they stayed, that they would not be here alone. The wards here were as strong as those on Grimmauld, so that should buy them some privacy to learn about the trace that had led the Death Eaters to their door. 

Harry smiled, eating yet another helping of cake, “Well, at least it solves the problem of having nowhere to go. We can remove the trace, and make sure your parents are safe.” 

“You’ll go soon.” George pressured, “Within a few days?” 

“Going on about life as usual will give the Death Eaters a false sense of security.” Dad contradicted, “After all, what could a pair of suburban dentists possibly know about guerrilla warfare?” 

Quite a lot, actually, Hermione thought. 

* * *

Hermione did not sleep. She was up before the sun, sitting in the windowless den at the side of the house, books floating in front of her face as she sat at a card table laden with books. It seemed that the trace could be weakened and manipulated by a ritualistic cleansing of magical auras by a triadic focus. Hermione was relatively certain that they could at least apparate now, which was not something at which to scoff.  

Hermione poured herself some tea as Fred wandered into the den with a fresh cup of coffee and set it down before her with a gentle kiss. “Mulicber’s in the neighbor’s back garden.”

Hermione cursed. “Did he set up wards?”

“They might—” Fred twirled his wand between dextrous fingers, “malfunction when reporting on your parents comings and goings.”

The idea that they would still report, but give incorrect energetic signatures was genius. This way, Voldemort would not suspect that his wards were broken, but would simply figure that his Death Eaters were a bit slow on the uptake. They were walking a tightrope, but if they moved quickly, the bit of fancy footwork would contribute to her parents’ safety. 

Fred wandered to the basement. Hermione knew she wouldn’t see him for a few hours. He, for the first time in their entire lives together, was actually upset that he could not take his daily run outside and was instead relegated to the magically enlarged space below ground. Hermione bookmarked her research and went to the kitchen to set about breakfast for everyone else. An army marched on its stomach, after all. 

 _Less than twenty-four hours ago,_ s _he had been standing in the sunlight at the entrance to the marquee, waiting to show in wedding guests. It seemed a lifetime away. What was going to happen now?_ Hermione knew that she had to start with Harry’s family history. It was not going to be an easy conversation, but it had to happen. 

Hermione saw her parents off to work, and noted that there were Death Eaters on the corner, as though mailing something at the postbox down the way took twenty minutes. Hermione felt a clench of worry but turned her mind to finding out where the locket, the real horcrux, was located. The sooner they were found, the sooner this was over.

“Dad or Papa would know.” Harry answered her eventual question, eating his chocolate cereal with the abandon of someone who was not being minded by his parents. He’d already eaten her quiche, so she supposed he was either hitting a growth spurt or eating his feelings. Then again, its was entirely possible that he simply remained a teenage boy.  

Hermione shoved half a grapefruit at him, leaving Ron to scoff. Hermione glared at the youngest ginger, “You’re not eating cake for breakfast.”

“You’re not my Mum, Hermione.” Ron retorted. He had already poured himself a large glass of milk, marveling at the muggle kitchen he had the ability to explore. He raised his knife to cut off a large slab. 

Hermione retorted, “I also don’t know where your next meal will come from. Would you please eat something better?” She sighed, watching as Ron paled, “This is war, not a holiday. You’re a weapon.” 

Ron swallowed and pushed the cake away. Hermione hated the churn of pain in her stomach as his face fell. She hated that she had to do this to him, steal every bit of the illusions that he had created in his mind. War was not glorious or fun. It was hell and drudgery. Learning that now would save him pain later. 

 _Someone who knew the family might know. Maybe Bathilda?_ Fred was taking advantage of a hot shower, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t participating in the conversation. 

George rolled over, and pulled a pillow over his head. _If you don’t stop singing in the shower I’m going to kill you. You’ll be dead and I won’t be sorry._

Fred simply scoffed and continued on as he had been before Hermione had brought up her quandary. _Call the sun in the dead of the night/And the sun's gonna rise in the sky_

_Touch a man who can't walk upright/And that lame man, he's gonna fly—-_

Hermione did her best to stay out of their antagonistic behavior as Fred yelped. The water had gone cold with a flick of George’s wrist. 

Ignoring the thump from upstairs, Hermione voiced Fred’s suggestion to the two younger men. Harry mused, “You know, maybe Kreacher would know.” 

“He’ll only tell your parents where you are, Harry!”  Ron cried. 

“Not,” He glanced at Hermione for confirmation as his eyes glittered with his cunning, “If I ask him not to tell. You know he hates Tom. Says he’s an upstart.” 

“No one and nothing is superior to the House of Black.” Hermione muttered. She didn’t much like Kreacher, even though she felt he was putting elf-rights back by spending his salary not on his own betterment, but on things for the family. Still, Sirius did what he felt best to promote equality and that was more than most did. 

Harry thereby called for Kreacher, who burst into ugly and violent sobs over Master Harry. He was so glad to see young Master Harry safe and well. His parents were worried, very worried, and Kreacher would make them happy and do his duty. He would bring the future of the House of Black home where he belonged. 

Harry did his best to dissuade Kreacher, and instead enlisted his help after gaining his promise that he was on a quest to avenge his house. This, of course, Kreacher understood. Kreatcher supported, it even, which was saying quite a lot. 

Harry began as only he might, “Kreacher, I need to know more about Uncle Regulus. I want to make sure he didn’t die in vain.”

The story that unfolded chilled Hermione’s blood. Kreacher recounted the entire series of events, with tears spilling down his face as he sat at a muggle kitchen table. Hermione had never been so moved at his plight. She regretted every angry thought she had ever had in his direction. 

_“Master Regulus had volunteered Kreacher. It was an honor, said Master Regulus, an honor for him and for Kreacher, who must be sure to do whatever the Dark Lord ordered him to do . . . and then to c-come home.”_

_Kreacher rocked still faster, his breath coming in sobs._ Hermione had a strong sense of what was coming, but she did not dare do anything but force air into her lungs. She felt George settle in at the top of the stairs, unwilling to startle the elf but very much wanting to be closer to her. Fred was just outside the kitchen door, just behind the elf. Hermione watched as he began to record the horrible tale. 

_“The Dark Lord did not tell Kreacher what they were to do, but took Kreacher with him to a cave beside the sea. And beyond the cave there was a cavern, and in the cavern was a great black lake…There was a b-basin full of potion on the island. The D-Dark Lord made Kreacher drink it…Kreacher drank, and as he drank, he saw terrible things… Kreacher’s insides burned…Kreacher cried for Master Regulus to save him, he cried for his Mistress Black, but the Dark Lord only laughed…He made Kreacher drink all the potion…He dropped a locket into the empty basin…He filled it with more potion.”_

Hermione had never before truly understood Kreacher’s devotion to his house, to his family. It had to come from somewhere inside of him, and was not based, as Hermione had long assumed on external pressure. That didn’t change the nature of his enslavement, but it did make clear things to Hermione that she had never before understood or internalized. 

 _“And then the Dark Lord sailed away, leaving Kreacher on the island…”_ Kreacher recounted that, very matter of factly, that he had come home. It was, Hermione knew, unthinkable not to do as Master Regulus had asked of him. He had been told to come home, and he had defied death to do what he thought was right, what he felt compelled to do out of devotion. Hermione did not see Kreacher’s reaction as devotion but rather as magical enslavement, but she was not going to contradict the meaning the elf had given some of his most painful memories. 

_“Master Regulus was very worried, very worried,” croaked Kreacher. “Master Regulus told Kreacher to stay hidden and not to leave the house. And then…it was a little while later…Master Regulus came to find Kreacher in his cupboard one night, and Master Regulus was strange, not as he usually was, disturbed in his mind, Kreacher could tell… and he asked Kreacher to take him to the cave, the cave where Kreacher had gone with the Dark Lord…”_

_“And he made you drink the potion?” said Harry, disgusted._

_But Kreacher shook his head and wept. Hermione’s hands leapt to her mouth._ She understood where this was going, fully, felt her boys recoil with shock and pain. Still, it seemed important to Kreacher play his own part in bringing down Tom. Hermione hoped that telling his tale would bring him some healing, banish some of the pain in the depths of his eyes.  

 _“M-Master Regulus took from his pocket a locket like the one the Dark Lord had,” said Kreacher, tears pouring down either side of his snoutlike nose._ Ron offered him a handkerchief. The elf howled at the kind gesture, and sopped up his tears for a long moment before continuing, _“And he told Kreacher to take it and, when the basin was empty, to switch the lockets…”_

_Kreacher’s sobs came in great rasps now;“And he ordered — Kreacher to leave — without him. And he told Kreacher — to go home — and never to tell my Mistress — what he had done — but to destroy — the first locket. And he drank — all the potion — and Kreacher swapped the lockets — and watched…as Master Regulus…was dragged beneath the water…and…”_

_“Oh, Kreacher!” wailed Hermione, who was crying. She dropped to her knees beside the elf and tried to hug him. At once he was on his feet, cringing away from her, quite obviously repulsed._ After a long tense moment, he patted her shoulder. It was though he was recognizing her as a living being for the first time. Hermione bit back tears and stepped away, wanting with all of her heart to thank the elf. 

 _So you brought the locket home,”_ Harry _said relentlessly, for he was determined to know the full story. “And you tried to destroy it?”_

_“Nothing Kreacher did made any mark upon it,” moaned the elf. “Kreacher tried everything, everything he knew, but nothing, nothing would work…So many powerful spells upon the casing, Kreacher was sure the way to destroy it was to get inside it, but it would not open…Kreacher punished himself, he tried again, he punished himself, he tried again. Kreacher failed to obey orders, Kreacher could not destroy the locket! And his Mistress was mad with grief, because Master Regulus had disappeared, and Kreacher could not tell her what had happened, no, because Master Regulus had f-f-forbidden him to tell any of the f-f-family what happened in the c-cave. . . .”_

Harry did the only thing he could do. He looked the elf dead in the eye, and said, “Uncle Regulus would be very proud of you, Kreacher. You have made The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black very proud with your service. You are an elf among elves.”

Kreacher howled, absolutely broke down. It seemed he had waited so long for someone to help him carry the load of this guilt, this pain, and it seemed that he was undone with the simple acknowledgement of pride in what he had done. And so they sat with him as his grief poured forth, sat with him until Kreacher had resolved to stay with Master Harry as his father would want, as his uncle would want. 

Harry had to refuse this offer, heartfelt though it was, and instead sought his help in keeping his Dad and Papa safe. Kreacher balked at young master not confiding in his parents, but Harry soothed him by promising Kreacher that if at any point things went wrong and Harry could not be found, that he was to tell everything he knew to Sirius. This, Hermione thought, helped Kreacher to see that he would not spend another decade in absolute agony that he dare not express. 

Hermione was genuinely bursting with pride at Harry’s leadership, his absolute fundamental kindness to the elf, and his care for members of his family, which the hardscrabble elf clearly was. Hermione thought back to Kreacher’s story in the coming days, and vowed unto herself that the world would one day know of his bravery. 

That said, her fundamental appreciation of both Harry and Ron did not make the coming days easier. Between the stress of watching Death Eaters watch her parents home and become angry when their wards malfunctioned, trying in vain to figure out, definitively, how they had been discovered in mundane London, and searching for the rest of the horcruxes, Hermione was on edge. The scouting missions to the Ministry were merely yet another thing to manage, but they were slowly compiling a plan to breach its walls. They rotated scouting out the Ministry under the cloak, spells doing little to ease the misery of those long hours. Their path would be made clear once they gathered enough intel to move forward. 

Finally, things came to a head on the fourth night of their stay. Her parents were doing Merlin knew what in their shared study, and Hermione was trying in vain to read while Fred took up a huge amount of mental real estate blowing up things with George in her bedroom. 

 _We’re brewing, dear._ George retorted, _brewing. Any bangs are mere byproducts._

Hermione sighed and tried to read. Finally, she vented her frustration to both Ron and Harry, who  were delighting in playing with the damn Deluminator. Remus had been sending patronuses with Sirius, by the dozen, declaring that they wanted to come along. She had a blinding headache, and she just wanted her bloody cat. She had made the best choice for him in leaving him with Ginny, but that didn’t mean she didn’t miss him. 

Hermione finally was pushed so far that she stood, her hair crackling, and stomped from the room, the very walls reverberating with her rage. She locked herself in the bath, and proceeded to use every bit of hot water in the house to fill a magically enlarged tub. Hermione hated what she knew, what Percy had been able to tell her. 

The Tonks family had been tortured. Rufus had been tortured and killed, not only for Harry’s location, but for information regarding the triad. Everyone at the wedding was now at the center of an inquest. Diggle’s house had been torched, and every other Order connected home had been ransacked. _The coup had been smooth and virtually silent._

Hermione had pieced together what she was able to, through Percy and the paper. _The official version of Scrimgeour’s murder is that he resigned; Replaced by Pius Thicknesse, who_ was _under the Imperius Curse._ Hermione let that thought and its implications settle in her soul. From what little she knew through Percy, Voldemort had outdone himself. _Declaring himself might have provoked open rebellion: Remaining masked created confusion, uncertainty, and fear._

Hermione sank into the hot, steaming, bath and reviewed the plan for entering the Ministry. _“Robes,” she said under her breath, acknowledging_ both George and Fred with a _mental nod and continue_ d to list the relevant contents in her beaded bag, _“Polyjuice Potion…Invisibility Cloak…Decoy Detonators…You should each take a couple just in case…Puking Pastilles, Nosebleed Nougat, Extendable Ears…”_

There came a knock at the door. Hermione waved her hand and the twins clambered inside the magically enlarged space, acting in extreme haste. The conversation they were going to have was not one any one of them wanted to have. Hermione took the bull by the horns. climbing out of the bath she had just prepared at the behest of mental turmoil that was growing by the second. “Let’s hear it.”

Percy had sent an advance copy of tomorrow’s paper. It contained two facts. Hermione took one look at the second page and leapt from the bath, shoving herself into clothing. There weren’t really words for the truths on that page in black and white. They bolted down the stairs. 

Ron paused mid-laugh as Hermione began, “I—…” She swallowed, “I’m so sorry.”

Fred passed Harry the paper. _Harry smoothed out the paper. A huge photograph of his own_

_face filled the front page. He read the headline over it: Wanted for Questioning about the Death of Albus Dumbledore._

Ron gave a roar of indignation and rage. 

Hermione tried in vain to lessen the blow, _“There has been such a dramatic change in Ministry policy in the last few days, and many are whispering that Voldemort must be behind it. They daren’t confide in each other, not knowing whom to trust; they are scared to speak out, in case their suspicions are true and their families are targeted.”_

Ron put things together very quickly, “ _Now that Dumbledore is_ allegedly _dead, you were sure to be the symbol and rallying point for any resistance to Voldemort. But by suggesting that you had a hand in the old hero’s death, Voldemort has not only set a price upon your head, but sown doubt and fear amongst many who would have defended you_.”

 Ron was not a chess master for nothing. Harry turned the page of the paper, likely to get away from the glaring evidence of the danger he was in when yet more information jumped out at him. He gave a gasp, a gasp that had little to do with the fact that Delores Umbridge was winking out at them from the paper, a locket engraved with RAB proudly around her pudgey, toady, neck. “‘ _Muggle-born Register_ …” Harry read, “‘ _The Ministry of Magic is undertaking a survey of so-called “Muggle-borns,” the better to understand how they came to possess magical secrets. The Ministry is determined to root out such usurpers of magical power, and to this end has issued an invitation to every so-called Muggle-born to present themselves for interview by the newly appointed Muggle-born Registration Commission.”_

Ron looked at his brothers, at his best friend and shot to his feet. “People won’t let this happen. He’s not that—”

George shook his head gently, “It’s happening already, Ronnie.” 

Muggleborns were having their wands confiscated, they hypothesized. Hermione had a very bad feeling about it. She knew that they had to get inside the Ministry, not only to get the locket, or to gather intel as was the original intent, but also to do what they might to pass her parents information to help muggleborns. Hogwarts letters were another way of getting to muggleborns, who would never be allowed to see Hogwarts, even though attendance was now entirely compulsory. 

She articulated as much, only to hear Harry issue a stern rebuke. “You know that this registry is another front for his game of Find the Triad. You’re not going anywhere near that place. We shouldn’t even be here. Ron and I will go alone.” 

Fred shook his head, “There’s no way in hell that’s happening. I’m sorry, Harry, but no.” 

The registry was the last straw, was the clarion call that spurred her parents into action. Within hours, her parents would get a summons on her behalf. Hermione knew it was time. Her heart began to pound in her ears, and the distance between her and the two people that had given her life seemed at once unfathomable and at once far, far, too little.

Hermione didn't want to hug them goodbye, didn’t want to watch them drive away as though they were going heading off to the City as planned, but she did. They left within the hour of her letting them know that the time was upon them. She felt the sorrow fill the bond as her boys hugged people they loved desperately goodbye. That sight shook her like nothing else. 

The registry was a ticking clock, and their last few days together had been a gift. Hermione refused to cry when her mother hugged her in their scant final seconds together. “I love you, Bunny Girl. Nothing else matters. If you need Daddy and I, we’re a portkey away.”

Hermione did not mention the traces, nor the throngs of Death Eaters that were in thick on the ground in Crawley. She knew her mother’s heart was in those words. Hermione steeled her nerves and stepped back from the hug. “I love you, Mummy.”

“Well, hey.” Dad interjected, his voice quite thick, “Every dentist deserves a bit of a continental holiday. Send muggleborns our way, and we’ll keep a light on for you all, anytime. You’re going to be missing a great party.” 

Hermione couldn’t hold back a sob-filled laugh. She wrapped her father in a hug, wishing she had told him she loved him a million times over but never quite knowing how to find the words. She liked to think that he knew. Hermione tried, but she couldn’t find the words, even now. Her father was absolutely the bedrock of her family. What she would do without him, she did not know. 

“I…” Hermione could not hold back tears, “I think you make a very dapper Wendell Wilkins, Daddy.”

“It doesn’t have quite the same ring as Darling Daughter Death Wish, but as aliases go, it’s pretty alliterative. You chose well.” Dad affirmed, hugging her again as he had fiercely hugged George and Fred in turn. 

Hermione wondered at the horrors her parents would face as they worked to liberate and support muggleborns. The writing had been on the wall for a very long time, and her parents were not, as they asserted, heading to the sunny beaches of Mallorca. In fact, they were staying within the United Kingdom, and would be doing what they could to break down the muggleborn registry and keep everyone they already had in hiding safe. Whereas Miranda and Matthew Granger were said to be leaving the country for a conference in Australia, Wendell and Monica Wilkins were going to ground. 

* * *

 

The next morning, a summons arrived on the doorstep. They put their plan into action, having slept little the night before. _They did not get to bed until late that night, after spending hours going over and over their plan until they could recite it, word perfect, to each other._

It had long ago been decided that George she, and Fred, would breach the Ministry. They needed the protection of being telepathic. Ron and Harry were going along, and they were going to try to be polyjuiced into teams, given that Magical Maintenance worked in pairs. Fred and George would stay with Harry and Ron respectively. 

They made quick work of stunning their unwilling victims and assuming their identities. Ministry employees traveled in packs, so hunting down the five relevant targets had been the first and easiest part of the plan. A few stunners, a few puking pastilles, and a few bouts of motion sickness set the plan in motion quite easily. Hermione flushed herself down the ladies toilet easily, wondering if she was flushing her life away as she did so.  

The atrium was positively Orwellian. Hermione, behind her wired spectacles, took everything in with a feeling of dread as the two teams of Magical Maintenance employees strode away. _Previously a golden fountain had filled the center of the hall, casting shimmering spots of light over the polished wooden floor and walls. Now a gigantic statue of black stone dominated the scene. It was rather frightening, this vast sculpture of a witch and a wizard sitting on ornately carved thrones, looking down at the Ministry workers toppling out of fireplaces below them. Engraved in foot-high letters at the base of the statue were the words Magic is Might._

What Hermione _had thought were decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans: hundreds and hundreds of naked bodies, men, women, and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, twisted and pressed together to support the weight of the handsomely robed wizards._

_“Muggles,” whispered Hermione. “In their rightful place.”_

Someone heard her, looked at her, and then hastily looked away. Hermione knew from the picture in the paper that Umbridge had the locket, and all she had to do was see that one of them got the locket while the others kept a low profile, got the scoop on the Registry, and checked in with Percy, if possible. 

Somewhere, Ron and Fred were working on atmospheric charms whilst ‘Ron’s’ wife sat waiting to be interrogated. Harry was making his way with George towards Umbridge’s office, and Hermione was headed to see one Percival Weasley. The whole thing was a blur of propaganda and threats from three directions, and Hermione had barely made it into the lift once again when not one, but two Weasley men strode aboard, avoiding looking at one another. 

Internally, Hermione praised every deity she could consider in the heady moment of success rushing down the bond. _Not until the doors had clanged shut again did Percy realize he was in a lift with his father. He glanced up, saw Mr. Weasley, turned radish red, and_ said nothing. It seemed that their cover story of being totally on the outs was as strong as ever. 

Hermione had something to say, however, and she did so on a whisper. “Scamander.” 

Percy twitched. He looked quickly at his father, who was looking at him. Confident she had their attention, she repeated herself, adding, “I’ve got sixty seconds before the lift resets.” Hermione threw up triadic privacy wards, and stopped the lift. 

Hermione did not need to confirm her identity, the word having done enough. Arthur looked completely weak with relief and Percy was wide-eyed with worry. “You shouldn’t be—”

“Every movement of yours is being tracked, Arthur. I just saw the file. The Tooth Fairy and Intrepid send their regards. We’re okay.” Hermione couldn’t help the single question that came bursting forth, “How’s Crooksy?”

Arthur smiled, then, and the smile broke Hermione’s heart. “He’s well.” 

They were running out of time, and so Hermione did the only thing she could do in this single moment. She brushed her hand along Arthur’s exposed arm, and pushed as much of the emotions pouring through the bond into his energetic fields as she could manage. She could not give him time with his sons, but she could give him all that she felt, all that they felt in this moment. It would never be enough, but it was all she had to give. 

Hermione and Percy headed to the courtrooms, as Percy was scribe for the Registry. He’d worked hard for that position, knowing his role as spy and informant could be enhanced and the damage done to people could be lessened with an occasional ‘mistake’ or ‘lost’ file. 

He passed her a duplicated file of information on what Hermione assumed was the newly established muggleborn camps. Hermione was going to take the file to her parents safe deposit box in London as soon as she could manage to get away from here. The seedy box in a dingy bank that was known more for drug deals than money management was the only spot she had for contacting them or making drops, and they would need this information. It was perfect, though, because the CCTV was always broken, and nobody asked a question as long as the rental fee was paid. It didn’t matter if your ID was a good fake and you paid with untraceable tenners. In fact, she was sure the managers liked it better that way. If she was too busy looking over her own shoulder, she wasn’t going to snitch on anything she saw. 

 _The dark passage outside the courtrooms was packed with tall, black-hooded figures, their faces completely hidden, their ragged breathing the only sound in the place. The petrified Muggleborns brought in for questioning sat huddled and shivering on hard wooden benches. Most of them were hiding their faces in their hands, perhaps in an instinctive attempt to shield themselves from the dementors’ greedy mouths. Some were accompanied by families, others sat alone. The dementors were gliding up and down in front of them, and the cold, and the hopelessness, and the despair of the place laid themselves upon_ the duo striding down the corridor like a leaden weight. 

 _“This is your final warning,” said Umbridge’s soft voice, magically magnified so that it sounded clearly over the man’s desperate screams._ Hermione fought not to react as they took their seats. Glancing over at her brother, she had a new appreciation for the work Percy did, day in and day out, on their behalf. His road was not an easy one, and if things went to plan, no one would ever know that he was one of the most Light filled people they had ever known.

Umbridge’s promise was chidingly happy, _“If you struggle, you will be subjected to the Dementor’s Kiss.”_

 _The man’s screams subsided, but dry sobs echoed through the corridor._ Hermione looked down at the papers, the questionnaire that poor Mary had honestly filled out, and fought not to scream out that she should run. How Mafalda survived this, knowing as Hermione did that she was a decent woman caught in this living hell, Hermione did not know. Hermione knew that Umbridge likely sought out Mafalda not because she was sympathetic to these goals, but because these tribunals tortured her, giving Umbridge more misery from which to feed. 

_“Take him away,” said Umbridge._

_Two dementors appeared in the doorway of the courtroom, their rotting, scabbed hands clutching the upper arms of a wizard who appeared to be fainting. They glided away down the corridor with him, and the darkness they trailed behind them swallowed him from sight._

_“Next — Mary Cattermole,” called Umbridge._

Hermione gave into the urge to push down into the bond and let her Second Sight fly forth. She felt and saw Harry sliding into the room with George behind Mrs. Cattermole. Hermione noticed the disgusting cat that protected the prosecution from the despair they inflicted on the victims of this kangaroo court. _The patronus, she was sure, was Umbridge’s, and it glowed brightly because she was so happy here, in her element, upholding the twisted laws she had helped to write._

Hermione and Percy were welcomed warmly into the meeting as poor Mrs. Cattermole tried in vain to state her case. Hermione saw George, felt him walking with Harry up the aisle to vanish from her sight. She fought to keep her gaze level and impassive. 

Gently, she felt his breath on her aged neck, _I’m behind you._

Hermione gripped the arms of her chair. 

Fred was running across the Ministry. His mental rebuke to his brother was stern _. If I start having erotic dreams about Mafalda Hopkirk, I’m going to make you pay, George._

This was all going to happen very quickly. Fred and Ron were dashing through the Ministry, knowing that time was running out and they had to move swiftly. The locket was in their sights, dangling around Umbridge’s neck, the fat sausage rolls of fat that hung from her jowls nearly obscuring it from view. 

_“That’s — that’s pretty, Dolores,” she said, pointing at the pendant gleaming there._

_“What?” snapped Umbridge, glancing down. “Oh yes — an old family heirloom,” she said, patting the locket lying on her large bosom. “The S stands for Selwyn…I am related to the Selwyns…Indeed, there are few pure-blood families to whom I am not related… A pity,” she continued in a louder voice, flicking through Mrs. Cattermole’s questionnaire, “that the same cannot be said for you. ‘Parents’ professions: greengrocers.’ ”_

Umbridge’s sick laughter was cut off as Harry yelled out in pure rage and injustice.  And then, she was shoved forth from her chair as Harry stunned Umbridge and Yaxley. Percy leapt over the desk in a sleek movement, dashing down to Mrs. Cattermole, and began to work to free her from the spells binding her to the chair as George scooped up the horcrux and duplicated it.

Hermione, for her part, pulled on the elemental magic in the earth. It was raw and bright on her fingertips. With the merest flick of her fingers, she obliterated the dementors in the room. She took particular pride in shredding that bitch’s patronus. It would glow brightly, but do nothing to protect her. 

The room crackled with power. Outside the door, Fred and Ron were working to get the muggleborns out of the Ministry and on the path to finding her parents. She only hoped her parents were ready. They would find a group of people waiting for help crossing the boarders and getting to safe houses. 

Then, as they began to funnel the crowds to the atrium, an alarm sounded. They shoved down panic and continued to act as though all was well, so as to keep the muggleborns moving. Those without wands had already been given portkeys, which Hermione found revolting. Those went up in flames before she could help herself. It was an instinctual reaction. She fought not to think about trains packed with human life, fought not to think about people starving to death, being tortured and murdered, over the circumstances of their birth. She had to focus. 

They had less than two minutes to get out of here. She ran through the corridor, prodding people along, encouraging them to keep moving, to ignore the alarms. She jammed people into the lifts, feeling rather like she was stuffing passengers onto lifeboats on the Titanic. She prayed the lift would move when it was filled, easily, to five times its capacity. 

As she moved people along into the two lifts, Hermione was hastily handing out sticky note portkeys and giving them the password, which was of course, Persephone. The portkeys could only be used after they had left the Ministry. Hermione was vibrating with power when she again saw both of her boys as the lifts lurchingly came to the atrium. 

Fear was etched into the polyjuiced faces. 

They were in trouble. _The Atrium was full of people moving from fireplace to fireplace, sealing them off._ The whole thing was a mess of epic proportions. It was Harry who brilliantly threw his proverbial weight around, and managed to get a few handfuls of people out before the whole plan was blown to smithereens. The two lifts full of people were gone, in a flash, and Hermione gave a shuddering sigh. 

The Ministry wizards hung back, some looking confused, others scared and resentful. _Then:_

_“Mary!”_

_Mrs. Cattermole looked over her shoulder. The real Reg Cattermole, no longer vomiting but pale and wan, had just come running out of a lift._

_“R-Reg?”_

_She looked from her husband to Ron, who swore loudly._

_The balding wizard gaped, his head turning ludicrously from one Reg Cattermole to the other._

_“Hey — what’s going on? What is this?”_

_“Seal the exit! SEAL IT!” Yaxley had burst out of another lift and was running toward the group beside the fireplaces, into which all of the Muggleborns but Mrs. Cattermole had now vanished. As the balding wizard lifted his wand, Harry raised an enormous fist and punched him, sending him flying through the air._

_“He’s been helping Muggleborns escape, Yaxley!” Harry shouted._

_The balding wizard’s colleagues set up an uproar, under cover of which Ron grabbed Mrs. Cattermole, pulled her into the still-open fireplace, and disappeared. Confused, Yaxley looked from Harry to the punched wizard, while the real Reg Cattermole screamed, “My wife! Who was that with my wife? What’s going on?”_

George _saw Yaxley’s head turn, saw an inkling of the truth dawn in that brutish face._

 _“Come on!” Harry shouted at Hermione; he seized her hand and they jumped into the fireplace together as Yaxley’s curse sailed over Harry’s head_ and the twins dove in after her, a shield flying up around them _. They spun for a few seconds before shooting up out of a toilet into a cubicle. Harry flung open the door; Ron was standing there beside the sinks, still wrestling with Mrs. Cattermole._

_“Reg, I don’t understand —”_

Fred stepped forward to help his brother break free of Mary’s clawlike, desperate grip. Ron cried, “Let go, I’m not your husband, you’ve got to go home!”

 _There was a noise in the cubicle behind them;_ Hermione _looked around; Yaxley had just appeared._ He was heading for Harry. Not on her watch. Hermione blasted him back, destroying toilets, water spraying everywhere.  

_“LET’S GO!” Harry yelled._

Hermione felt George take control of the situation. He grabbed Ron as Fred grabbed Harry, and Hermione slipped her arms hastily between theirs, and they were gone. It was an agonizing trip, but with a few bumps and diversions to shake off the tail they’d acquired, they landed back in Crawley. 

They barely had time to disillusion themselves and dive behind a hedge. As they landed, the unmistakable cracks of apparition resounded in the drive across the road. Hermione felt sick. 

Death Eaters strode up the walk and knocked on the cheery front door of her childhood memories. They waited but half a moment before blasting the door open and ransacking the house. Every ward tripped, leaving Hermione to know that they had started the fire in her bedroom. 

Hermione, with Harry, Fred, Ron, and George, in tow watched as the house she had grown up in burned to the ground. They watched in abject sorrow, their triadic disillusionment rendered the whole company of them invisible, watched their childhoods, and the last vestiges of safety and security, burn into nothing. 

* * *

Hermione melted into the pavement. She wore a her jeans with the ease of someone who hadn’t washed this pair in a few days, and slipped into the bank branch, smelling the tang of urea in the air as she slipped into another accent and asked the clerk if he wanted a free picture. 

She opened the box carefully, and slipped Percy’s paperwork inside. Her parents had already been here, for inside the box there was a single piece of paper.

_Dear Darling Daughter Death Wish,_

_There’s nothing left unsaid. I’ve always known. Whenever this finds you, know that I love you, have loved you since you were a very adorable but nausea inducing clump of cells, and will love you unto infinity. Even when the rain in Spain falls gently on the plain._

_-Your very favorite parent._

_P.S. I shan’t tell Mummy. She’s lethal, a bit deluded in her devotion to you, but lethal. We love her anyway, don’t we?_

Standing in the dingy bank, Hermione felt two tears, absurdly, roll down her face. She let herself sob once, and then forced the tears away. She forced them away, shoved the papers into the box, and fled into the street. 

She could not help but keep the small slip of paper in her pocket. Her father was absurd, but somehow finding this tiny letter meant that they were out there, somewhere, together, still them. If he could be absurd and silly, then perhaps they would survive enough to come together once again. And, in taking that paper with her, Hermione knew that would be enough. She dried her tears, blaming their resurgence on the chilly wind, and hastened to Waterloo, to meet those she loved under the clock. 

* * *

They were in the Forest of Dean. Harry said the forest would keep them off-grid. He was apprehensive to go to a safe house, preferring to leave them for the waves of muggleborns that would no doubt need them. Hermione admired his resolve. She agreed to try to use the tent as a base for the hunt, but the decision sat uneasily with her. She went along with it, though, so tired of always feeling like she and George and Fred had to make the hard choices. 

Fred, Hermione, and George worked and worked on a way to destroy the horcruxes, but nothing they had posited worked in reality. They moved the tent from place to place each night. _Every morning they made sure that they had removed all clues to their presence, then set off to find another lonely and secluded spot, traveling by Apparition to more woods, to the shadowy crevices of cliffs, to purple moors, gorse-covered mountainsides, and once a sheltered and pebbly cove._ It made the loss of her home easier to stand, somehow. 

Starvation wore on all of them. Hermione prayed no one would notice that she was halving her own meagre portions of whatever food they could pull together so that she could stretch what little vegetarian food she could find over the next days until a next palatable meal became available.

 _“So where next?” was_ Ron’s _constant refrain. He did not seem to have any ideas himself, but expected Harry and_ the triad _to come up with plans while he sat and brooded over the low food supplies. Accordingly_ they _spent fruitless hours trying to decide where they might find the other horcruxes, and how to destroy the ones they had already got, their conversations becoming increasingly repetitive as they had no new information._

After weeks of this utter bullshite, Hermione knew something had to be done. Not even her knitting could ease the tension in her body. Her gums had begun to bleed. It was hard being a vegetarian in the middle of the woods. Textured Vegetable Protein didn’t literally grown on trees, and she could not, despite Ron’s jokes, eat grass. What she did not know was that she was not the first one to lose patience with the skulking they were doing around the far reaches of Great Britain. 

Fred and George, it seemed, saw more than she had realized. They were, Hermione realized one night, striking with precision and lethal force. They would brook no disagreement, not from her and not from anyone. Hermione wondered if Ron and Harry knew just what they were up against. 

“Alright, we’ve done it your way, Harry, Ron.” Fred began, resting his hip against the overstuffed armchair across from where Ron lounged in his throne, complaining about their lack of progress and his empty belly. 

George’s tone was equally jocular, equally deadly. “We’ve let you drag us from pillar to post, and we’ve watched Hermione starve herself over your, ah, leadership.”

“Which, we have to say, is a living nightmare of monumental proportions.” Fred offered, as if the gleam in their eyes wasn’t enough to go on in that respect. 

“But the good news is, boys, that’s over now.” George grinned, “Because guess what? You’ve had your turn, and we’re in charge now.” 

Blue eyes glinted into the lamplight, and just dared them to stand against George’s words. Hermione felt the tension, never low, ratchet up another degree. It hardly seemed possible that relationships could be yet more strained. She gripped her knitting needles tightly. 

Ron spluttered, “I thought we were a team.”

“We are,” Fred promised, “But a good team member doesn’t sit by and watch almost a decade of work go to shit because you can’t figure out that there’s a whole world out there offering protection.”

Hermione had tried to moderate countless debates about going into the muggle community. She counted her stitches, feeling the wool in her hands grow itchy. Ron was not going to take this well, but neither George nor Fred cared anymore. 

“I won’t go into the muggle community!” Ron blurted, “We’re only endangering them.” 

The ensuing fight was epic. Harry, brought round by the fruitlessness of this quest, was keen to try things a new way. He had not been quite so aware of his companion’s sacrifices and the idea that he had been blind to the shortfalls of this plan crashed down on him like a tonne of bricks. 

Ron wasn’t so easily moved. He spluttered, “I don’t understand why suddenly the sacrifices we’ve made for weeks are just over because you two say so. Hermione’s being absurd.”

“I’m being absurd?” Hermione returned, arching an eyebrow as her hair crackled. She wasn’t the one who moaned and whinged at every turn about the fruitlessness of this adventure. She wasn’t the one who complained of the cold and the lack of activity and the dreadfully slow work of research. 

“Ronnie.” George broke in, “You’re not thinking straight here. This is war. This isn’t some grand adventure like Sir Galahad.”

“And you only know that because you got years and years of training.” Ron spat, “And what I’d get to prepare for this? The DA? It doesn’t matter, it’s just Ron, he’s tagging along but nobody knows fucking why!” 

“You’re here because we need you, you utter git!” Hermione cried, “But it’s time to grow up, Ron. You can’t keep holding on to what you think this should be, you have to go with what is happening, and react to that, otherwise we’ll never survive.”

“Do you know how many times you’ve said that to me?” Ron’s face was bloodless, “‘Grow up, Ron.’ All my life you’ve been a step ahead, a cut above. With everything! Even now you’re—” He broke off with an angry cry, “Why don’t you just eat meat?”

Hermione did not say that she had already given so much of her self and her autonomy and her soul to this cause. She would not give this, not give the last bastion of personal choice and her ethics. Her body was her own, and Voldemort would not ever, never, control it, not even in this. Her body was her own. She would not needlessly take defenseless life. 

“Do you think I wanted life to be like this?” Hermione demanded, her knitting now long ago mangled and abandoned, “Do you think a few parties and a few times somebody turned a blind eye to my behavior was worth the fact that your brothers and I sacrificed our childhoods? We never had a single illusion of safety! We had to grow up or risk everyone we loved being on a slab, and that includes you! We were turned into killing machines and weapons by the time I was twelve! So don’t stand there and tell me that you’re angry because I had a bit more freedom growing up!” 

“Do you remember those Death Eaters?” Fred asked, his voice toneless. “The ones in the cafe?”

“Fred, no.” Hermione begged, knowing exactly where he was going with this, and exactly why. “Don’t do this to him. He’s not—”

“He thinks he’s ready.” George shook his head, “And if he doesn’t want you shielding him, taking care of him, we can make that happen.”

But Ron had sealed his fate, mulishly jutting out his chin and demanding, “You’ve got no right to mother me, Hermione.”

“I didn’t take them to the tube.” George revealed, “I killed them. I used that earth magic you bitch about all the time to obliterate their magical cores and deaden sensation. Then, while they were stunned and unable to fight back, I put a bullet in them. After they were dead, I summoned the bullets, closed the wounds, and fed them to the wood chipper, making it look like Dolohov had merely created an accident.”

“Why?” Ron cried, utterly dismayed. “They could have—”

“They would have died either way, at our hands or at Tom’s wrath.” Fred insisted, “We don’t take pleasure in it, didn’t want it to be painful. But this is war, Ron, and it’s kill or be killed.”

“You knew?” Ron’s wild gaze encompassed Hermione, as though he could not look at her face, “You knew they’d—”

“Yes, Ron.” Hermione did not reveal that it was not the first time they’d killed, nor would it be the last. It weighed on them. They weren’t monsters. “I’m sorry I led you to believe that they were alive. It seemed kinder to you both. There were so many changes in your lives that I couldn’t bear—”

“It’s like when a pet goes to a farm.” Harry had tears in his eyes, but he seemed to understand, seemed to know what had motivated the lie, “When I was a kid, my rabbit died and Moony told me he’d gone to live at Ebony Hall with all the other rabbits.”

“Oh, don’t compare it!” Ron cried, “Remus didn’t put a muggle bullet in somebody’s—”

“Head.” George intoned calmly, “Would you like details? It might help to—”

Ron hissed, “You’re no better than him, no better than You Know Who.” 

There was something dark in his eyes, something that told Hermione that something had broken between the four of them. Harry was an innocent bystander. This was a family matter, and everyone in the room knew it. 

 _Ron made a sudden movement: Harry reacted, but before either wand was clear of its owner’s pocket, Hermione had raised her own._ For their part, the twins raised their hands in a placating, honest, gesture. They would not raise their wands against their little brother, no matter how deeply their hearts were breaking. Hermione had no such compunction. 

 _“Protego!” she cried, and an invisible shield expanded between_ the triad _and Harry on the one side and Ron on the other; all of them were forced backward a few steps by the strength of the spell, and Ron glared from_ his _side of the transparent barrier as though they were seeing each other clearly for the first time._ “Now, we’re going to talk this out.”

“There’s no talking, is there, Ron?” George asked, sadly. His heart was aching, pain and misery rushing down the bond, though nothing showed on his face. 

Fred agreed, “Not when you’ve raised your wand against your family.” 

“You’re not my family.” Ron seethed, his face splotchy and red. “My family has ideals, values. My family wouldn’t—”

_“Then GO!” roared Harry. “Go back to them, pretend you’ve got over your spattergroit and Mummy’ll be able to feed you up and —”_

“Harry…” Hermione chided gently, “It’s alright.”

But it wasn’t alright. Ron left. Fred was so brokenhearted that he withdrew into himself and George was awash with a despair so great that he barely reacted to the world around him. Ron left, and their family was in shambles. There was nothing to do but move forward. 

Hermione settled them into a tiny flat in Oxford, and within a day, pressed Bod Cards into George’s and Fred’s hands. She had her own, as well. It made her a little sad to know that this was as close as she might ever come to being a fresher. 

But the purpose was served and her feelings had nothing to do with it. A goal gave her boys a bit of their spark back, and day by day, they found a way to wake up and not think of the empty place at the table. They spent days under the radar at the Bodleian, and other libraries at Oxford, some of which were older than even the Bod. No wizarding people worked there, except in their own institutes and colleges, and so Hermione was able to keep out of their way with relative ease. There were magical sections, naturally, if one knew where to look, and naturally, Hermione knew just where to go. The magical portions of the library were as yet unheated, in slavish devotion to tradition. The temperatures dropped as their spirits sagged, digging and digging for information.   

Time marched along. Hermione found some peace in the wizarding texts that masqueraded as muggle medieval texts, and hoped that one day their worlds would not be so disparate. She researched everything she could. One day, when leafing carefully through a text, she looked up to see George working diligently across from her, and demanded, “What did Xeno say about the Hallows?”

“Not much. You know that. Viktor came upon us and it went to shit.” George replied, “He seemed excited, though.”

“Why?” Fred voiced the question spilling double-time down the bond. 

Hermione gestured, “You read Latin the best.” 

This, it seemed, was the original copy of The Beetle and the Bard, written down in some form of wizarding classical Latin. George had a head for the language. And so, he began to mutter, “ _In time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across. However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water. They were halfway across it when they found their path blocked by a hooded figure.”_

“It seems like the version you have, Hermione.” Fred ventured, “Why are you so excited?”

Delicately, Hermione spun the book around to face the boys, and laid a gentle finger over the symbol in the very bottom corner of the text. “Holy shit.” George breathed, “Holy—”

“It’s a book cipher.” Hermione whispered, truth and certainty welling in her soul, “The Hallows are real.”

Fred scrambled for a piece of muggle lined paper. He took up a pen, and shoved the paper aside when he saw that it was covered with notes on horcruxes and reached for parchment, his hand shaking. 

_“The Elder Wand,” he said, and he drew a straight vertical line upon the parchment. “The Resurrection Stone,” he said, and he added a circle on top of the line. “The Cloak of Invisibility,” he finished, enclosing both line and circle in a triangle, to make the symbol that so_

_intrigued Hermione. “Together,” he said, “the Deathly Hallows.”_

“What does this mean for defeating Tom?” Hermione mused, “The Elder Wand is known as the Death Stick, but I don’t—”

“We need to find the horcruxes. But what if Tom was obsessed with the Hallows? What if they’re connected?” George blurted, setting them down the rabbit trail of more research that would span weeks. 

Over the next few weeks, Hermione grew more confident that the Hallows were real. Triads were real, after all, and people doubted their reality with equal fervor. She knew too much about the world to doubt the Hallows. She knew in her heart that the Cloak they possessed was the one that had belonged to that unique triad of objects. They worked and researched with fervor and discerned, somehow, that Harry would one day be the Master of Death. Hermione did not tell him this, but he figured it out on his own. She tried to be there for him as he coped with his destiny. 

They were entirely cut off from the wizarding community. It wore on them heavily. Somehow, sitting in a library did not seem to be doing anything of value, even as they now knew more about destroying horcruxes to the point that they had a theory that could be tested, a theory that was rooted in triadic magic, but was rooted also in magical theory that actually seemed simple enough to be workable. The work to protect muggle communities did not end, although the attacks came so thick and fast that they could only do so much.

The muggle press was at a loss, and the situation grew dire. The Queen went on the telly, urging her people to be calm. Hermione heard her speech on the mundane radio, and thought back to the Queen Mum’s steel spine during World War Two, and hoped that Kingsley was taking care of them. She felt incredibly proud to be British to hear her monarch basically tell Voldemort to fuck off, that he had another thing coming if he sought to undermine the United Kingdom. Her Republican-leaning heart was warmed at the sight of her monarch’s resolve. 

The next night, when Hermione tossed a fiendfyre molotov cocktail at a few Death Eaters on the prowl in mundane Manchester, Hermione felt incredibly accomplished. She ran when she heard the explosion and the screams of the Death Eaters, and knew that her safety wards would keep the neighborhoods marginally safer. As she sought out her boys, she heard the pop of gunfire that spoke to military training and evasive driving. She couldn’t help but wonder if Mummy was in Manchester, too. 

She later found out that in the same city, there had been a sharp rise in the amount of magically connected families decamped under mysterious circumstances for the continent that same weekend. In some strange way, she felt as though she was standing shoulder to shoulder with her Mum and Dad.

When she saw the words _Well done, Sister Suffragette!_ spray painted on a concrete wall in Colchester, Hermione knew that her parents had been there and were telling them to keep the faith. 

George squeezed her hand when they saw that greeting, and Fred laughed. “Leave your Mum and Dad to quote Mary Poppins to bolster us.”

Hermione sighed. It wasn’t the same as having them here, but it was enough. 

Though these practical excursions continued, the theoretical front was no less important. Hermione took her time examining snitch. She had never thought to really do so, but her second sight revealed something amazingly conformational. Inside the snitch, there was some sort of a stone that radiated with power, power beyond even what Hermione could do. She spent hours and hours and hours studying the snitch, and came to understand that _I open at the close_ had something to do with the final battle that they knew was coming. The resurrection stone was a Deathly Hallow. 

Hermione tried not to work herself into a lather over what it might mean for Harry. Even so, she found herself trying to keep him as close as possible, trying in her own way to remind him that she loved him, that there were people in the world who would simply fall down and die if he did not choose to stay. She knew that she could not replace his mother, and if her mother had died and she had a way to bring her back, Hermione knew she would stop at nothing to have Mummy with her once again. But the Stone didn’t really bring people back, only a shell, and the torment would be hellish. 

On the fourth solid day of a fresh treacle tart appearing on the table, Harry looked at her askance and asked, “Are you sick?”

Hermione shook her head, “I just want you to know how loved you are, always, all the time. Please don’t ever forget it.”

Harry stuck his fork in his food, and stared at her for a long moment. Hermione could not hold back her curiosity, “What?”

“You know I love Dad and Papa. But when I was a kid I used to…” Harry broke off and shook his head, “It’s stupid.”

“You’re not stupid.” Hermione knew that whatever he was about to say was important, “What?”

“It’s just that... not everybody’s mother is a 45 year-old housewitch, you know?” Harry’s implication was very clear, and his perception of her role in his life made a lot of their stress points and their issues very clear. Hermione understood, and her heart swelled. 

After a long moment of understanding between them, Harry flicked his wand and summoned a fork, “I’m not eating this by myself.” 

And so, they put to, Hermione setting aside thoughts of the Resurrection Stone. She could not bear to think of Harry dead, and she knew that if Dumbledore had given him the stone, then he expected that Harry might greet Death. He had another thing coming if he thought that, for a single second, because Hermione would never let that happen. Tom could take over the entirety of Western Europe and it still would never be enough to risk Harry. His own thoughts on the matter were immaterial. He was not allowed to die. 

One Saturday, George bumped into Lee on the Tube. He’d been checking in with her parents via the postbox drop location. From then on, the boys and Lee took up doing _Potterwatch._ The twins threw out misinformation all the while sending coded messages of hope to the resistance across the United Kingdom. They apparated around the country, and used the time to search for leads in the horcruxes. 

One Potterwatch broadcast brought them to Ottery St. Catchpole, though they could not go home. Hermione thought she saw an orange half-cat in the tall, frosted, grasses, but she knew that her silly suppositions were mere hope. Hermione popped in on Xeno with Harry, while the others went off with Lee to broadcast from a small inlet cave a few miles away. 

The entire thing went to hell within moments. It had taken Harry one glance at Luna’s room to know that she hadn’t been home in ages. The fact that Xeno had turned them over to the Ministry was not unthinkable. Hermione got them out of there by the skin of her teeth, hoping against that a glimpse of Harry would save Xeno’s life. Xeno’s presence had saved the Death Eaters, certainly, because she did not dare reveal the bond in front of him. He knew so much about esoteric things that he would certainly notice the bond. 

 Hermione skidded into the cave, breaking through triadic wards like child’s play. Lee was there, and he and the twins were broadcasting information that they’d gathered in muggle communities and on the muggle news and that Lee had compiled from rare bulletins from Kingsley and Percy. He was on the run, and heard a lot from people on the run, as they heard occasional tales from from her parents. Those were coming so infrequently that Hermione worried for her parents, strange spray painted messages aside. She supposed that everyone was too busy working to stop and leave her a note in the box, but still she worried.  

Harry and Hermione were silent as Lee spoke, _“Listeners, I’d like to invite you now to join us in a minute’s silence in memory of Ted Tonks, Dirk Cresswell, Gornuk, and the unnamed, but no less regretted, Muggles murdered by the Death Eaters.”_

The show continued on, until Lee spoke anew, after interviewing George and Fred for a segment relating to sightings of Harry Potter. Apparently he had been recently seen in Aberdeen, and then in Bristol. They had been there, and had left obvious clues, but that had been weeks ago. They all knew that, despite their work to stay underground, that Death Eaters knew all. 

Lee closed out the show with a message of hope that the world desperately needed, _“Keep twiddling those dials: The next password will be ‘Mad-Eye.’ Keep each other safe: Keep faith. Good night.”_

Hermione hugged Lee, never knowing if she’d see him again.

She rarely knew anything about Potterwatch, only that the boys were leaving, and promised to come back. These fleeting meetings were fraught with risk and danger, but information was a power that not even Tom could steal. These broadcasts kept the morale of countless people above the tide of despair. They were worth it. They were worth every risk, if only to see the hope and joy that swirled around her boys and their best friend for the scant moments they spent together. 

Hermione did not let herself feel fear as her boys went away with Lee. Hermione merely wished them godspeed and knew that they had roles to play. She would go back to research and keeping Harry safe, praying each and every second that they would come back to her. 

* * *

Hermione entered the flat after a long day alone at the libraries, and dropped her muggle keys on the scuffed table they’d transfigured out of an old block of wood. She nearly jumped when she saw Ron, sitting there, covered in debris and battered. 

He jumped up when she came inside, _“Hermione, I’m sorry, I’m really—”_

 _“Oh, you’re sorry!” She laughed, a high-pitched, out-of-control sound; Ron looked at Harry for help, but Harry merely grimaced his helplessness._ Hermione dared Harry to so much as breathe in Ron’s direction. 

_“You come back after weeks—weeks—and you think it’s all going to be all right if you just say sorry?”_

_“Well, what else can I say?” Ron shouted, and Harry was glad that Ron was fighting back._ Hermione wanted to smite him right then and there. How could Harry be so accepting? What had happened that Ron knew exactly where the flat was, and how to get here, and why was Harry smiling? 

_“Oh, I don’t know!” yelled Hermione with awful sarcasm. “Rack your brains, Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds —”_

_“Hermione,” interjected Harry, who considered this a low blow, “he just saved my —”_

_“I don’t care!” she screamed. “I don’t care what he’s done! Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew —”_

There came an awful banging on the wall, and someone next door screamed, “Oi! Keep it down you wankers!” 

Hermione threw magic at the wall with a horrible scream, “Fuck off, Vanessa!” She turned back to Ron, silencing charms now in place, and began to let him have what for, “Some nerve you’ve got, coming in here, uninvited, unvetted. For all I know you could be a goddamned Benedict Arnold.”

“Who?” Ron blurted. 

Hermione screamed yet again. “If it weren’t for Molly, I’d kill you, brother or no brother.  You are spineless and you have the gall to sit on your high horse, make pronouncements that gut your brothers, and then swan back in expecting a hero’s welcome! I don’t fucking think so!” 

“Where are George and Fred?” Ron blurted, “I know I need to apologize to them.”

“They’re gone!” _Her voice was now so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless, and Ron seized his opportunity._

“Gone?” Ron blanched, “What do you mean gone, and gone where?” 

“Don’t you think I’d ever tell you where. I’ve no desire to be a widow before I’m twenty and I don’t trust you.” Hermione insisted, a cold smile across her face, “But believe you me, they’ve each got earfuls for you.” 

“He just saved my life.” Harry interjected. 

Hermione folded herself rigidly into one of the chairs. Harry didn’t go out alone. “From what, a burnt cheese toasty?”

“You Know Who was there, Hermione.” Harry confessed, “I went to Godric’s Hollow. I had to see Bathilda, but she’s been dead for weeks. It was the Snake. She—” 

It was then that Hermione saw that he was bleeding, felt the dark magic pouring from the wound. Beyond angry, horror rendering her speechless, Hermione pulled his arm away from his body, and saw the state of the two boys for the first time. 

As Harry told the story, Hermione worked to heal his wound. It was disgusting work, and she vomited twice in the process, expelling the magic she took into herself through black bile. She was pale and shaking by the end of it, but she did it. George was somewhere in Wales looking for anything related to Rowena Ravenclaw, and Fred was in Albania, but they were with her in the bond, and she was fully capable. 

By the time she finished, Hermione was able to stand, and ask for clarification. “The snake was in her? She was the snake?”

 _“Bathilda must’ve been dead a while. The snake was…was inside her. You-Know-Who put it there in Godric’s Hollow, to wait. You were right. He knew I’d go back.”_ Harry revealed, “The whole place was in shambles by the time we left, but Ron got me away. He saved me, Hermione.” 

And so, when Hermione put out dinner, she set another plate. There was no sense in reading Harry the riot act. He’d gone on a fool’s errand and had learned what he’d needed to from it. Hermione was not ready to forgive Ron, but she knew they were better together. 

That night, she took Ron extra blankets for the trundle she’d transfigured. They each had their own rooms in the flat, but Ron’s arrival meant that he was bunking down with Harry. Harry was in the loo when Ron spoke, “I would have killed her. When I saw her over Harry, before the snake came out, I would have—”

He seemed anguished by this truth, but accepting of it. “I know how you feel.”

“No, Hermione.” Ron shook his head, “That’s not the point. I’m sorry for all the things I said. I didn’t understand. I thought this was all about a grand quest, like the Three Brothers, but it’s just survival and hoping we can prevent death, isn’t it? I’m sorry.”

For a long moment, they were silent in the unity of reconciliation. Hermione finally broke the silence with a steady inquiry about how he had found Harry. He revealed the Deluminator, and explained that the light from within it, the magic, had led him to Harry. _“And once it was inside me I knew what I was supposed to do, I knew it would take me where I needed to go.”_

“It sounds a bit like triadic magic.” Hermione offered, “We can do that.”

“How long have they been gone?” Ron asked, sympathy plain in his voice.

“A bit longer than two weeks.” Hermione admitted, “They’re searching for horcruxes. We can’t destroy them until we have them all, because we don’t want to let Tom in on the fact that we got the locket. After the diary, well, it’s better to wait.” 

Ron offered an olive branch, “Using his name breaks protective enchantments, it causes some kind of magical disturbance. It’s how they found us in Tottenham Court Road! You’ve got to give them credit, it makes sense. It was only people who were serious about standing up to him, like Dumbledore, who ever dared use it. Now they’ve put a Taboo on it, anyone who says it is trackable — quick-and-easy way to find Order members!”

Hermione knew that both of her boys had heard their brother. It was another bit of information that would help them. War, Hermione had learned, was information. It was a battle not over life, but over information that would lead them to the right places and spaces, give them the insight and the power to make the right choices. Victory and destruction hung in the balance, not between one spell and the next, but in between one fact and another, and the choices that led them from one bit of information to the next. 

That weekend, the trio left the confines of Oxford to nip down to London and check the postbox. They were polyjuiced, and based on the directives in the box, they found themselves on the moors. It was bitterly cold, but there was information there, buried in a pit, that would evidently help them. All they had to do was switch one bundle of paper for another and make a mark with magical chalk into the stone. With all of the confusion that came from distraction wards, it took them hours, and the potions had worn off. 

High with the sensation of actually doing something that was going to help people, Harry crowed into the wind, “Take that, Tommy! Ha! Vol—” Harry hopped like a lamb in springtime on the moors, ignoring the drizzle. 

Ron screamed, _“HARRY, NO!”_

“—demort! Some—”

Hermione threw as many shielding spells up as she could. They were defenseless on the open moors, hiding behind granite and stone, the great stones providing little protection as cracks echoed around them. 

 _“Come out_ from behind _there with your hands up!” came a rasping voice through the_ mist and drizzle _. “We know you’re there! You’ve got half a dozen wands pointing at you and we don’t care who we curse!”_

Hermione thought quickly, and fired a spell at Harry, wishing with all her might that there was time to swallow more potion. Thinking quickly, she threw up the shields in her mind, thick hedges of privacy. Both George and Fred were in deep, and to leave now would mean abandoning their quests. 

The fight was an epic haze of spellfire on the moor. Hermione, trying to convince the ignorant snatchers that she did not know Harry Potter, refused to use triadic magic. It was clear that these snatchers wanted either the triad or Potter himself, who was assumed to be the triad’s focus. 

_“Get — off — her!” Ron shouted. There was the unmistakable sound of knuckles hitting flesh: Ron grunted in pain and Hermione screamed, “No! Leave him alone, leave him alone!”_

_“Your boyfriend’s going to have worse than that done to him if he’s on my list,” said the horribly familiar, rasping voice. “Delicious girl…What a treat…I do enjoy the softness of the skin…”_

Hermione held her head high as she fought the werewolf off of her. “My name is Penelope Clearwater.”

“Oh ho!” Fenrir chortled, his breath hot on her neck, “You look like that Granger girl. I’ve had my eye out for you. There’s nothing like a triad. The power, the anguish.” He shivered, and chucked hotly against her. “Tell me, how badly will it hurt you to take someone else? How badly will it hurt them to watch?”

Hermione met his gaze, her hair flying in the breeze. She wasn’t scared. The death in his eyes did not shake her half as much as Ron’s screaming and Harry’s demands that she be freed. Their protests told Greyback everything he wanted to know. _“Well, this changes things, doesn’t it?”_ whispered Greyback, before rising. 

Hermione felt the twins battering against the shields. Despite her best efforts, they knew something was wrong. They could feel that in their souls. Hermione forced a wave of utter calm to flood the bond, not unlike the emotions that came with a drop. Trust, love, respect. Stillness. Unity. 

She would not sacrifice them, not even to save herself. Not even to save Harry and Ron, who were understandably terrified as they were spirited away to Malfoy Manor. Hermione held herself as the warrior she was, revealed nothing when she was roughly handled. She did not cry when slapped. She smiled when her lip split open. 

It was Mrs. Malfoy, sister to Andromeda, an aunt to Harry all his life, who welcomed them into her home. It was nothing on Ebony Park, but it was a cold and foreboding place that pulsed with dark magic whereas the Black seat radiated warmth and love. Hermione, as she fought the onslaught against her shields, smiled at Narcissa, blood pooling in her mouth. 

She only had to bide her time. Draco, it seemed, would not identify Harry. Hermione wondered just what sort of connection Harry and Draco had, as the atmosphere in the room seemed utterly charged with something she could not name. Hermione rested back into the bond, knowing that despite her best efforts to block them out, that her boys were together now, and were not letting her dictate to them. 

Ordinarily, she would be quite annoyed. Now she was just worried. They were walking into a trap. She could get Harry and Ron out, if given a scant interval. She was certain that she could blow these laughable wards like crepe paper. She only needed to get as much information as she might before she did. 

Hermione knew she had done the right thing when Bella saw the locket. She went absolutely wild, absolutely insane. She grew absolutely manic. _“Take these prisoners down to the cellar, Greyback.” said Bellatrix sharply. “All except…except for the Mudblood.”_

_Greyback gave a grunt of pleasure._

_“No!” shouted Ron. “You can have me, keep me!”_

_Bellatrix hit him across the face; the blow echoed around the room._

_“If she dies under questioning, I’ll take you next,” she said. “Blood-traitor is next to Mudblood in my book. Take them downstairs, Greyback, and make sure they are secure, but do nothing more to them — yet.”_

“Now.” Bella said, freeing Hermione with a silver knife and dragging her by the hair into the middle of the room, “Mudblood. Tell me. Where did you get that locket?”

Hermione said nothing, as her blouse had torn to reveal the horcrux around her neck. This drove Bella wild. She hissed, “Now, now, you mudblood whore, this is your last chance. Where did you get the locket?”

Before Hermione could defy her, the Black-Lestrange woman had crucio’d her. Hermione blocked out as much as she could of the spell, but it was agonizing. It was agony and pain and terror and torture and made her want the oblivion of nothingness. 

The world spun as the spell went on and on for indeterminate minutes. Hermione used all of her strength to keep her shields up, to protect the men she loved as they would have protected her and their brother were either of them in this boat.   

Beyond her own screams, she heard George screaming her name and Fred demanding she lower her shields as Ron screamed her name from the cellar. Hermione was magically tied down, unable to move, even as her body bowed but did not buckle under the onslaught. 

On a pant between blasts, Hermione screamed, “I found it! It’s a bit of jewelry.” She spat out her muddy blood towards the other witch, who was circling her as though to kick her. It was all she could do. She could only move her head. “Nicer than anything you own, isn’t it? The good stuff went to Sirius.”

Hermione’s implication was there for all to see. If Hermione was Harry’s bonded, then she would be the next matriarch of the Black line. The heirlooms would come to her, would go to any children born of that union. Bellatrix knew exactly what Hermione was implying, and kicked her swiftly in the stomach before Hermione could yank on the bond to avoid a direct blow, “I’d sooner beat the brat out of your filthy body with my bare hands. Draco’s the heir. Not Potter.”

Magic crackled in the air. Hermione knew she would never, never, let that happen. She would never let this murderously insane bitch get her hands on any child she carried, any child she loved. “You’ll be dead and buried and mopping Lucifer’s brow before you touch my family, you bitch.” 

The knife that sliced Hermione’s throat was a warning she refused to heed. As her blood poured forth, she smiled. “I really did find it, in a lovely shop in Diagon. Quite beyond your allowance, isn’t it?” Hermione felt her lungs burn as she spoke, but the idea that she had hit some mark empowered her. 

Hermione disassociated during the next bout of torture, intentionally so. She saw, in the depths of her mind, repeated attempts at apparition failing for both Fred and George. Oh, how she loved them. How they loved her. She would not let them come. She was so close to a horcrux. She would not risk them. Not until the time was right. 

Try as they might, Hermione would not respond to the frantic urgency of their promptings. They could feel nothing, see nothing but the vibrant walls of her mind, the beautiful trellises she had mentally constructed in contrast to brick walls or steel doors usually associated with shields. The flowers were verdant, thick, impregnable. She had never wanted them to see walls. Her flowers were as beautiful to them as they were to her, a place of mental refuge and peace, ordinarily. 

“She can’t do this!” Fred was screaming, in her third eye. _You can’t do this. Don’t do this. You can’t do this._

But the hedges grew thicker, as if to say, _Oh, boys_.

The flowers grew more verdant. _Look at what I can do. I love you. So much._

And then Hermione surfaced again, pulled to the front of her mind as the unhinged witch screamed, _“You are lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it! You have been inside my vault at Gringotts! Tell the truth, tell the truth!”_

She wasn’t given time to lie. The pain was unfathomable. She heard herself screaming. She felt the walls around her shake. Deep within herself, Hermione felt the bond explode, felt power ripple around her as Bellatrix screamed, _“What else did you take? What else have you got? Tell me the truth or, I swear, I shall run you through with this knife!”_

The blade pierced her flesh, drew a deeper line just below her jugular. Hermione felt her blood pour forth from her body and begin to spill onto the floor, seep into her hair, felt magic crackle the air. 

Hermione admitted nothing, she panted, “They’re coming. I couldn’t stop them. I tried to have mercy upon you. I tried. You’re sick. I couldn’t—”

The whole manor shook. A frisson of power zinged down Hermione’s spine. There was some kind of pleasure, some sort of chemical reaction in this knowledge, that allowed her to begin to laugh hysterically. She laughed as her color waned and her magically bound legs began to shake from blood loss, “The joke’s on you, Bella. They’re coming. Can you feel it? Your death approaches.” 

Bella laughed, “They’re locked in the cellar! You’re never going to see your filthy lovers again. Mudbloods can’t bond! They’re sacred. They said what they had to say to get into your bed.”

The walls shook anew. Hermione saw windows shatter behind her bloodied eyes. Bella kicked her, this time in the head. Hermione drew inward mentally to avoid registering the blow, but it did little to prevent a skull fracture. She could not move. 

Bella screamed, _“How did you get into my vault?”_

Hermione never got the chance to laugh in the bitch’s face one last time. The entire floor shook once again. Hermione focused on the bond. She knew all she needed to know. There was a horcrux in the LeStrange vault. She pulled hard, and the enchantments around her broke enough for a spiral of magic to hit the other witch square in the chest. 

Bellatrix Black Lestrange fell to her death just as Hermione was struggling to breathe around severed the charmed ropes that bound her. Two flashes of color flew from the direction of the basement steps. Hermione gave a great heaving sigh, “All this fuss.”

Fred’s face was bloodless as he worked to free her from the remaining charmed ropes. George poured dittany into her, and scooped her up carefully as Fred grabbed the locket, their clothes soaked with her blood. Hermione protested, only to learn that the rumblings she’d felt had been them dismantling the wards and getting every other prisoner to safety. 

Hermione, sensibly, fainted as the world swirled around them. The world swooped around her. Hermione breathed, and the first scent she registered was that of sharp, tangy, sea air. She cracked her eyelids as they landed, and registered the knowledge that they were running inside somewhere. 

Harry and Ron’s voices swelled around her. Reaching out blindly, she clasped Fred’s hand. _Safe? Boys safe?_

The press of his lips against her fevered skin was a benediction. _They’re safe. You’re safe._

Hermione slept, her dreams haunted with the press of cool hands on her body and Fred’s face crumbling as George shattered every window in Shell Cottage. In her dreams, she could barely breathe.

She heard, distantly, prayers. They were French. French prayers. They were funny, as funny and beloved as somebody putting up Wrackspurt traps around her bed. She thought Fleur was distant from the Church, but Hermione heard her voice as clear as anything. “Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâces…”

Hermione wanted to roll over, but she was too tired. She fell back into the bond, and felt the sparks within her soul burn brightly as two people realized that, even while she was not with them in body, she was with them in spirit. She felt them both pour magic into the bond, and drifted off again to oblivion, knowing all would be well as long as they were together. 

She needed neither prayers nor wrackspurt traps to know her own eternal truth. 

* * *

She woke later to realize that she was in the guest room at Shell Cottage. Fleur burst into genuine tears as she roused enough to greet her sister-in-law. “Déesse!” 

Now that sounded more like the pantheist she knew. Hermione mumbled, her mind cloudy, “What?” She tried to push at the coverlets, for she felt genuine rage and anger rolling through the bond like thunderclouds. 

Hermione sent them calming energies, but it was for naught. She could not go to them. The silencing charm around the room broke, and Hermione heard yelling. “You two won’t even speak to us!” It was Ron, then, demanding, yelling. “We’re sorry, okay?” 

This was George, then, yelling at Ron. “You pop up like a bad rash and are filled with apologies and expect us to understand?”

“Newsflash, you prat, we don’t. You were raised better than that!” Fred interjected, “And you! Running your stupid mouth after you were warned, after you were told—”

“You just had to prove yourself, with your bravado and your swagger! Easy to do when you’re not the one paying the price, when you’re not the one courting death in the aftermath of your, oh what’d he call it, Fred?”

“Forgetfulness.” Fred snapped, his voice soft and deadly,“Well, here’s something you’d better not forget. Anything more happens to her, anything, and you will wish Tommy had finished you off.”

“Anything he’d do would feel like a butterfly’s kiss.” Hermione could not see George well through the bond, but she could make out his blue shirt, the tensity of his body, “He might be a Dark Lord, but need I remind you what we are?”

“We get it, okay? You’re magically powerful and we’re pathetic excuses for wizardingkind.” 

“See, there’s the lip.” Fred’s voice was granite, “There it is, George.”

“And the stupidity. What a fine example.” Hermione could hear the chill in George’s voice, “You’re going to have to live with the consequences of your choices, the both of you.” 

“We have to live with it. Merlin.” Fred’s voice was ragged, “Jesus.”

“How are we going to tell her?” George breathed, so low that Hermione had to rely on the bond to hear it. 

Hermione noted that Fleur could not look at her. She smiled brightly, and offered Hermione water with a steady hand. Hermione’s whole body ached. She wasn’t sure she could swallow. 

“Tell her what?” Harry demanded, “What doesn’t she know? If it’s the War, we ought to all know.”

Still, Fleur held a cup and supported her body weight as Hermione took a sip and found that her mouth was dry. She sipped yet another little bit of water, until she found that she needed air. After a second, she tried to sip again. 

“Go fuck yourself.” George retorted, “You think we care about your war?” 

Fred bolted from the room. Hermione heard the screen door slam and jolted, water sloshing all over the bed. Fleur cleaned it up in an instant, and it was then that Hermione realized just how bad off she was. Fleur shushed her, “I sent them for food. I will be having words with Harry and Ron. I told them to let the twins be, but did they listen?” Her eyes fell on Hermione’s face, “All will be well, ma soeur.”

Hermione felt, rather than heard, Fred fight back tears as George told Harry and Ron to leave Fred alone. Something wasn’t clicking in Hermione’s mind, but she knew her boys were in pain, and it was enough to help her gather her wits. 

 _Leave them alone._ Hermione gently tried to calm her boys, her mind fuzzy but her will ironclad. _They’re not to blame. I egged her on for information. We need to get to the bank, not vent emotions. We need—_

Before she could complete the thought, a horrible flinching motion overtook her body. It was the kind of pain she could neither resist nor expect. An ear shattering scream ripped through the air. Hermione realized dimly that the voice that was screaming out was her own. She was screaming, an unintelligible sound of pain. It was like that long-ago seizure, except far more violent and far more magically draining. 

Later, she would learn that her body had been reacting in this way for nearly a full day. In the moment, though, Hermione fell into the bond. She couldn’t help it, and wasn’t sure that she wanted to. In the depths of their unity, she felt as close to her boys as was cosmically possible, and it somehow made the pain a blur. 

* * *

The earth would cleanse her, would help her make peace with the reality that she had learned hours ago. Hermione stood on the rocky path with Luna and looked to the sea, as it called to her. It had been Fleur who told her what she had unwittingly lost, soft words and calmness in the face of a realization that numbed Hermione. 

She’d needed the words, even though the knowledge had solidified within her in a single moment could not be changed with words. But words, and the acknowledgment therein, had shaken something loose within her. In spite of that, the only thing she could do was deny what Fleur said as though the vehemence of her refusal would change reality. Hermione knew that the agonized sound she made in that moment would forever remain in her memory as far more haunting then the screams that had come from mere physical pain. 

She’d put two and two and three together, once she saw a learned the date, time something that had long ago become meaningless, and understood that the blood pouring from her body was not the menstruation that had been forgotten for over two months. Shocked and shaken, Hermione had felt along the bond for a long second. She understood their sorrow then, even as she sobbed silently in Fleur’s embrace.

Hermione did not let herself think of the feelings that rushed down the bond when they knew that she knew. She did not let herself think of their faces as Fleur had slipped from the tiny guest bedroom. She did not let herself think, because if she let herself think, she forgot how to breathe.  

 It hadn’t been hard to figure out in retrospect. She’d never once given her cessation a fleeting thought in the weeks prior, and she wished with all her might and her will she had done. Time had become meaningless, and nowhere had it occurred to her that her body wasn’t doing something it ought to have done.

Nothing, not even a time-turner, would change the impacts of her foolish oversight. Bellatrix Lestrange was dead, but Hermione wanted to bring her back again and again and again and make her suffer as they now suffered.  

 Hermione knew this, and so on the third day of her recuperation, she helped to plan a break in and wandered to the sea with Luna. _Dawn was breaking over the horizon, shell pink and faintly gold,_ as they made their way down the rocky shores to the cold water. Hermione, knowing Luna wouldn’t judge her, walked as far into the sea as she could possibly manage. 

Luna held her as the sea moved around them, its movement inexorable, as she cried. Hermione cried, not only for herself, but for the ways the last two days had changed George, for the ways the last two days had impacted Fred. She cried for the way Harry and Ron looked at her, as though she was spun glass. They did not know, but Hermione thought they had perhaps guessed. 

 She cried for her singed hair that now danced around her shoulders, her shaking body. She cried, because Bellatrix, though she would never know it, had succeeded in her goal. The words she had spoken, thinking them mere conjecture, haunted Hermione. Of course Harry had nothing to do with it, and of course Hermione hadn’t realized, or she would have sooner died than goaded her in such a fashion. Hermione dried her tears with the benediction of the sea and Neville’s school scarf, something that Luna never removed. 

Luna supported her weight. “Things that we learn about in their absence are the hardest to forget, aren’t they?”

“I won’t forget.” Hermione whispered. Fred would stop telling her that there was nothing to forgive every time she looked into his eyes. The bleeding would stop. She would stop crying. George would stop promising her that she hadn’t done anything wrong. “I won’t let myself.”

“It wasn’t goodbye.” Luna whispered, in that knowing way of hers, “It wasn’t goodbye. They’ll come back.”

“Nothing will ever be the same.” Hermione whispered. “Not me, not the boys, not our marriage, not—”

“Maybe not.” Luna had tears of her own in her eyes. “But wouldn’t it be funny if they were the same, when everything else had changed?”

Hermione did not have a response. How funny that it was Luna, wild and free and mystical Luna, who was the only person who made sense. Hermione wondered if the world would ever right itself again, and wondered then if she even wanted it to do so. 

* * *

_Hermione looked frightened that the wand might sting or bite her as she picked it up._

_“I hate this thing,” she said in a low voice. “I really hate it. It feels all wrong, it doesn’t work properly for me. . . . It’s like a bit of her.”_

Hermione shuddered, weeks later, still feeling that same rage when she thought of Bella Black. It felt like the bit of her, Hermione thought, that killed a bit of me. Still, she was resolved to her do her part. They had stayed at Shell Cottage for as long as was needed, the flat in Oxford abandoned. Knowing the time had come, she swallowed the potion. 

She chanted inwardly as she transformed, pushing away the thought that her ability to do this rang so false. _Ring. Diary. Locket. And…_ Today they would find the Cup. Today they would get the cup, and the ring that had been secreted away in her pouch would be joined not only by the diary and the locket, but also by Hufflepuff’s artifact. 

The whole day may Hermione sick with its easiness. It was all too easy to impersonate that woman, all too easy to penetrate Gringott’s with Harry invisible beside George and Fred, Ron polyjuiced by her side. It was all too easy to find the Cup, free the dragons cruelly enslaved in the bank, and wink out of there, destroying the wards there in the process. They dove in a lake, to help heal their burning flesh, and wash away the lingering darkness that LeStrange had left on her skin. Hermione watched the dragons fly away to freedom above her, and cursed those who had captured them for mercenary gain. 

They had _angry red burns all over their faces and arms, and their clothing was singed away in places. They were wincing as they dabbed essence of dittany onto their many injuries. Hermione handed Harry the bottle, then pulled out bottles of pumpkin juice she had brought from Shell Cottage and clean, dry robes for all of them. They changed and then gulped down the juice._

Harry was seized by knowing that the time had come. Hermione trusted it, and fell into action beside George and Fred and Ron. Their journey to Hogwarts was not an easy one, but Aberforth’s truths made it clear that, after the War, there would be a reckoning with Dumbledore. Hermione was sure of it. How could he have left his little sister to languish and die? If Hermione never heard the words ‘greater good’ in her life, that would be too soon. Even weeks and weeks later, she questioned if the knowledge of the Cup had been worth sacrifices she had made, willingly and unwillingly, and knew that the greater good no longer held any sway in her life. 

* * *

 

The picture Neville painted as they moved along the passage was bleak and Hermione knew that they were either walking to their future or to the deaths. Neville was bruised and battered, and his expression of a totalitarian regime under Snape and the Carrows was horrifying. 

Hermione gripped Neville’s hand and flooded his chakras with healing energy, before they had even made it halfway to end of the passage. He’d had broken ribs, bruised lungs, torn ligaments. He’d been tortured, repeatedly, over time. Hermione shushed him when he looked at her quizzically, and then around in the narrow passage for the two men who were not of their year. 

There was nothing said about her companions as he recounted the stories of those they loved and missed. Seamus had been targeted especially. Irish. Half-blood. Gay. It was a trifecta of torture for the Carrows, who had something against all three demographics. Hermione forced herself to swallow and not blow the castle to bits. Oh, Merlin, Seamus. 

There was a torch in the end of the passage that threw Neville’s healed body into relief. There was nothing she could do about the warrior that looked back from his eyes. Hermione let her hand fall into George’s, and brushed her other hand along Fred, who stepped ahead of her to go up  _another short flight of steps that led to a door just like the one hidden behind Ariana’s portrait. Neville pushed it open and climbed through. As Harry followed, Hermione heard Neville call out to unseen people: “Look who it is! Didn’t I tell you?”_

 _As they emerged into the room beyond the passage, there were several screams and yells: “HARRY!” “It’s Potter, it’s POTTER!”_ “Oh, Merlin! It’s Fred!” _“Ron!” “Hermione!”_ “She brought—!” “I told you they were with Harry!” “Oi, George!” 

Harry looked to her, clearly overcome at the sight of those they loved and the Room’s suitability. They had been there for mere minutes when the portrait swung open again. Hermione smiled knowingly. She knew who would be turning up, knew the first person Neville would reach out to the second he thought it safe. 

 _“We got your message, Neville! Hello you three, I thought you must be here!”_ Luna greeted Hermione and her boys before turning to Harry and Ron. Really, though, it was clear for all to see that she only truly had eyes for Neville. 

 _It was Luna and Dean. Seamus gave a great roar of delight and ran to hug his best friend._ Hermione looked away at the sight of their embrace. It was deeply personal. 

_“Hi, everyone!” said Luna happily. “Oh, it’s great to be back!”_

_“Luna,” said Harry distractedly, “what are you doing here? How did you — ?”_

Hermione sighed. It was lucky she loved Harry, because he was totally oblivious to his friend’s love life. He and Neville had been friends since they were in prams, since they were in utero likely. Harry looked to her, and then back at Luna, who made no bones about settling against the broad expanse of Neville’s side. 

_“I sent for her,” said Neville, holding up the fake Galleon. “I promised her and Ginny that if you turned up I’d let them know. We all thought that if you came back, it would mean revolution. That we were going to overthrow Snape and the Carrows.”_

_“Of course that’s what it means,” said Luna brightly. “Isn’t it, Harry? We’re going to fight them out of Hogwarts?”_

Harry looked to Hermione, and took a step back. Hermione shook her head. He was trying to say that she was in charge. Hermione wasn’t going to let that be the case. Harry had, as Neville had been for those at Hogwarts, always been the nexus point for them. She would not always be there for him, but she had every confidence that he could do this. She had never been so scared, so sure, and yet so very proud. 

It was Ron who stepped up. “It ends tonight. Their tyranny ends tonight and Hogwarts becomes our home again.” 

Everyone cheered. In that moment, Harry made the choice to rise above the secrets and lies that Dumbledore had taught him to value. He told the assembled crowds everything he knew, everything that had happened. He did not tell them about the triad in their midst, though Luna certainly knew, as did, she suspected, Neville, Dean, and Seamus. 

Hermione spotted a ginger girl in the crowd and vaulted towards her waiting embrace. The crowd parted as they came together. Hermione gripped her sister tightly. “Are you well?”

The crowd around them stepped back as the held one another, finally, finally, together. 

“No.” Ginny admitted with a laugh, uncaring of Harry’s impassioned speech, “You?”

Hermione shook her head. “What a fine pair we are. I’m a basket case.”

“We’d be nutters if we were well in the midst of all of this!” Ginny admonished her. 

“If you two don’t mind,” Harry broke in to their reunion, “I’m trying not to butcher your horcrux research.”

“Was that supposed to be a death pun?” Fred called out to the amusement of the crowd.

“He’d need necromancy to make that one funny.” George agreed.

“Fro the love of Merlin, Hermione.” Harry called out, “Would you please put me out of my misery and take charge?”

“Only if you stop with the death jokes.” Hermione agreed, “They’re a bit macabre.” She smoothed down her wild hair, “Now, as Harry said, we’ve got the diary, the ring, the cup, and the locket. We need something from Ravenclaw and who knows what else. Luna, you were saying last night that you thought it might be—”

“The diadem, yes.” Luna agreed, her grip on Neville’s hand quite fierce. “I don’t know how to find it, but I know someone who might.” Harry balked at speaking to the Grey Lady, but Luna was far more sharper and stalwart than she appeared and brooked no nonsense.  

Everything happened so quickly that Hermione knew when the present became the past. Harry was going skittering through the castle with Fred and Luna as Ron was going to oversee evacuating the younger students through the tunnel to Aberforth. George and Hermione planned to run around helter-skelter to use triadic magic to secure Hogwarts now that Snape had done a runner. They moved around the castle so quickly that eventually they found themselves back in the Room of Requirement once again. 

_Just before the entire family poured out of the Room of Requirement one final Weasley came bolting into the room. There was a scuffling and a great thump: Someone else had clambered out of the tunnel, overbalanced slightly, and fallen. He pulled himself up on the nearest chair, looked around through lopsided horn-rimmed glasses, and said, “Am I too late? Has it started? I only just found out, so I — I —”_

George stepped forward into the shocked silence, breaking it easily. Hermione had forgotten fro a long second that most of his family thought Percy estranged from them, even if he did put in appearances at the hols. “Ah, there you are, you giant rat!”

“Wondered when you’d skitter off of your stool, you pigeon.” Fred agreed. 

“Oh Gods!” Ginny yelled, “I knew it!” 

“If it is all the same to you, I prefer informant. Or spy.” He gave his sister a sternly fond look as she began to crow about her knowledge, “I do have the glasses.” 

 _Mrs. Weasley burst into tears. She ran forward, pushed Fred aside, and pulled Percy into a strangling hug, while he patted her on the back, his eyes on his father._ “Why didn’t you all tell me everything you were doing, Percy?”

“I knew, Molly.” Arthur apologized. “I tried to forget. But I knew. I’m sorry.”

_“Well, we do look to our prefects to take a lead at times such as these,” said George in a good imitation of Percy’s most pompous manner. “Now let’s get upstairs and fight, or all the good Death Eaters’ll be taken.”_

Hermione ran off with George, as per the plan. She checked in with the various professors. Flitwick gave a great sob and exclaimed that it was a honor to work with George. Hermione left them to it for a long moment and participated in other ways. Once they were together, they passed _portrait after portrait, and the painted figures raced alongside them, wizards and witches in ruffs and breeches, in armor and cloaks, cramming themselves into each others’ canvases, screaming news from other parts of the castle._

“This is fun!” Hermione called, magic around her like a nimbus of power. The Death Eaters were laying siege on the castle. They were no match for the professors and the trio, not to mention, of course, the triad in their midst. 

George ducked as a _gigantic vase blew off its plinth with explosive force, that it was in the grip of enchantments more sinister than those of the teachers and the Order._

_They forged on through the trembling passages, wands at the ready, and for the length of one corridor the little painted knight, Sir Cadogan, rushed from painting to painting beside her, clanking along in his armor, screaming encouragement, his fat little pony cantering behind him._

_“Braggarts and rogues, dogs and scoundrels, drive them out, see them off!”_

Hermione caught up to Fred and Harry, who converged together at a passageway. _“Nice night for it!” Fred shouted as the castle quaked again,_ as Hermione reached for his hand. The magic increased again at their touch, and Hermione felt power surge through her veins. She felt almost high on it. 

 _“Where the hell have you been?” Harry shouted_ , when he saw Ron ahead of them. He bustled them into an alcove and ducked as magic pinged off of Hermione. 

“I’ve been chasing a Satan’s Familiar away to safety.” Ron admitted, “Seemed important.” 

Hermione saw tufts of orange fur on his clothes, saw gouges on his arms and knew well what they meant. Hermione’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s amazing. You’re wonderful, Ron.”

“It takes me a while to catch on.” Ron admitted, “But—”

Hermione launched herself at Ron and wrapped him in a huge hug. “I love you.” Ron embraced her fiercely. “Don’t ever change.” 

 _“OI! There’s a war going on here!” Ron and Hermione stepped apart, their arms still around each other._ Harry continued, “Do you suppose you could hold in all of the sibling bonding for a bit?” 

Hermione rolled her eyes, and hugged him too. “There’s no need to be jealous.” 

Harry laughed nervously. Hermione squeezed him tighter and whispered, “I love you.” Harry’s hands gripped her tightly, and Hermione felt his exhalation into her hair, as though he was memorizing her embrace to carry with him into this uncertain future. Hermione would never tell that she had long ago done the same. 

 _It was clear, as the three of them stepped back into the corridor upstairs, that in the minutes that they had spent fussing over one another, he situation within the castle had deteriorated severely: The walls and ceiling were shaking worse than ever; dust filled the air, and through the nearest window,_ they _saw bursts of green and red light so close to the foot of the castle that_ Hermione _knew the Death Eaters must be very near to entering the place._

Hermione decided in tandem consult with George and Fred that the time for prevention had passed. They would come, and let them. Hermione welcomed the chance to smite them. And smite, she thought, as a bit of magic flew from her fingers into the advancing crowd below, was just what she’d do. Ron and Harry ran off to find the diadem, and Hermione and her boys began to destroy the horcruxes they had, knowing that time was of the essence. 

They began with the cup. Shoving magic into it, they drove out the magic that Voldemort had placed into it. Blasting it with one forceful push of magic, they destroyed the cup simply by overloading it with pure light and picking apart the dark threads that tried to cling to it. Hermione sagged into the bond, and felt the souls that were bonded with hers pull the magic closer. The earth accepted the magic. 

The castle shook. An eerie scream echoed in the distance. It was oddly anticlimactic. However, after the years of practice, the simplest and most straightforward effort did somehow work best. All of the fancy spells in the world didn’t have a patch on faith, trust, and love. It was that measure and unity of faith, love, and trust that purified and enacted their will. 

Hermione could not help but remember the night that it had all come together. “How can I get my magic to do it?” Hermione had hollered in frustration,  “Why?”

Fred had been buried in his research. “Well, did you ask your magic to do what you want it to do?”

“Ask it?” Hermione had shrieked. 

But George had jumped up and abandoned the schematics that had consumed him for weeks. “It’s a part of you. It’s a part of the earth. The meeting is in the acceptance of the bond, the articulation of what you are within that union.” 

There had been actual metaphysics to it, but Hermione knew that they didn’t matter now. All that mattered was the successes they were now experiencing. And so, asking had worked, more or less, helped along with a container to control the blasts they’d spent months working on, as the container channeled energy in such a way that funneled it into the bond in a steady flow. The theorem was based on energetic frequencies and was apparently not supposed to function or exist within modern magical theory. However, just like the mythical triad, exist it did. 

Hermione allowed herself to fall into the bond and follow the magic. She allowed herself to be a transmitter of pure intentions, and underneath the trust and light in that act, the darkness fled. The horcruxes exploded one by one, held in stasis by the container that slowly leeched the power into the bond, from where the magic went back to the earth to be fully cleansed.

 Ron and Harry came flying into the room, dragging Draco Malfoy and one of Malfoy’s henchmen with them. Hermione scooped up the horcruxes as they came into view. The diadem that Harry dropped onto her lap lacked any dark magic. Harry simply turned and ran after Ron once again. 

Hermione ran from the room, demanding answers as Fred nearly overtook Harry. Harry just shrugged, “Don’t ask!” 

George hollered, “I think we’re entitled to your process!” 

“Someone set off  fiendfyre!” Harry laughed, “It was no molotov cocktail, but it worked!” The bunt nature of his clothing and the soot on Ron’s pale face told her enough, but there was no longer any time to stop. Death Eaters were racing through the halls. Hermione could feel the wards she’d set years ago going off, sending bolts of awareness down her spine. 

Spells were flying everywhere as the entered the throng on the other side of the castle _. Harry, Ron, and Hermione ran forward to help: Jets of light flew in every direction and the man dueling Percy backed off, fast: Then his hood slipped and they saw a high forehead and streaked hair —_

_“Hello, Minister!” bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, who dropped his wand and clawed at the front of his robes, apparently in awful discomfort. “Did I mention I’m resigning?”_

_“You’re joking, Perce!” shouted Fred as the Death Eater he was battling collapsed under the weight of three separate Stunning Spells. Thicknesse had fallen to the ground with tiny spikes erupting all over him; he seemed to be turning into some form of sea urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee. “You actually are joking, Perce…I don’t think I’ve heard you joke since you were —”_

A spell exploded around them, and Hermione was aware of the world shifting on its axis as they dove in unison for cover. She flew through the air as the corridor crumbled around them. The scout had spotted, and targeted, the triad. The bond snapped as the world righted itself and Hermione heard George screaming at the top of his voice, “No — no — no!”

Hermione felt the light inside her soul flicker. The debris flew in the air around them as she began to hyperventilate. “Fred!” 

Her screams were anguished, clear as bells above the carnage of the battle. She would do anything to keep him here, anything. She looked at George’s pale face as he shoved all of his own magic into the bond as she did the same, and the truth that they shared was profound. 

“Listen to me.” Hermione heard herself sobbing, screaming, demanding that Fred listen to her. The fighting in the corridor had stopped. Percy was yelling, demanding that everyone get the hell away, and the sound of him cursing shook something loose in Hermione’s heart. 

She couldn’t feel anything. She was entirely numb. She didn’t even see Ron firing hexes and spells at giant spiders who were climbing the walls. She heard herself screaming, felt George’s sobs echoing in her soul. She would not let Fred go. She heard herself repeating her edicts over and over and over as though she could make his heart start by sheer force of will. 

In a rage, Hermione shoved magic out into the world. Her hair was floating on a magical breeze, holding everyone around them still as the corridor filled with her intent. She heard a hiss reverberate across the grounds, felt the balance of magic shift in the universe. She knew in the next instant that a sacrifice gladly given would restore order in the world. Hermione knew a horcrux was gone. 

“Do it!” George screamed, tears pouring down his face. About ten seconds had passed since Fred had—had—fallen. 

For the first time, Hermione felt the fullness of her power rush her veins. She felt her aura surge, and knew it was very visible to those around them. She had never before tapped into this depth of her power. It made her feel sick. Had she been paying attention, she would have heard gasps and cries of alarm. Deep inside her soul, Hermione flooded Fred’s decaying spark with every bit of power she could muster. She had never tried to bring anyone back from the dead. 

It was not technically possible, according to modern theory, but she didn’t really give a shit what some git said she could do or couldn’t do. She was going to keep Fred, and if that meant bringing him back from the dead, then she’d do it and make no apologies for it. 

 Life giving was supposedly the highest manifestation of triadic power. Those who took life, could give life. It had taken years for Hermione to understand that this was not a veiled reference to procreation. Fred was not dead, yet. This was not technically life giving, and so Hermione was slightly more certain that nothing would stand in her way—

Somewhere, as though having an out of body experience, Hermione allowed the bond to overtake her, falling deeply into her Second Sight. She felt as though she was watching a muggle film, as though she was observing herself even as she was awash with power. As tears poured down her face, she drove away the decaying magic that indicated injury, and healed them, driving away every bit of dark with the purity of her light and the force of her will. 

Through instinct, she reached for George’s hands, and placed them over Fred’s still heart, George having already torn his shirt open. His bottom palm slid down to the center of Fred’s chest along the breast bone. He placed his left hand on top  of his right and laced his fingers together. 

Magic shook the castle. She was ridding the world of evil. It wasn’t enough. Driven by desperation, she thought back to her mother’s training. 

Hermione watched as George leveraged his entire body weight over his brother’s chest, and began to push down in a steady motion. His elbows were locked and his arms were steady and straight over Fred’s chest. Internally, Hermione counted. She knew he would hit over one-hundred within a minute. 

_One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine_

Hermione heard screaming and knew that evil flesh was burning. Their magic, totally unified, was burning the Dark Mark off of branded arms, leaving a bubbling scar behind. Her world narrowed to the point of contact where George’s hands met Fred’s body. 

_ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-fifteen-sixteen—_

Percy was protecting them. Ron was battling spiders. The world was falling to pieces around them. Hermione sobbed. Somewhere in the distance, she heard Riddle screaming, “Potter!” 

_seventeen-eighteen-nineteen-twenty-twenty-one-twenty-two-twenty-three-twenty-four_

Hermione inhaled brokenly, and bent to check Fred’s airway. She put her fingers along the strong line of his jaw, and tilted his face backwards, pinching his nose closed. She had two chances to do this. Hermione bent down as George continued giving compressions in time with her actions, and pushed her breath into Fred’s mouth. She forced magic into the single breath of air, and felt the bond tingle. His chest rose. Hermione gave another breath, pushing every bit of magic she could muster into that single gust of air. 

The bond blazed. Hermione was dizzy. Her world tilted. The bond snapped. Where there had once been three unified strands of magic there was now one single thrumming thread of magic, singly united in their shared will.

Fred inhaled on his own as though shocked back into bodily rhythm. George was hyperventilating as Hermione placed her hand on his shoulder. Hermione’s tears dripped down her face. Somewhere, distantly, she heard Percy babbling something incoherently. Magic zoomed above their heads, but it was mere parlor tricks in comparison to the miracle that had just taken place. The bond swayed within her soul, and she knew it was exactly the same for both George and Fred. Hermione felt her heart skip a beat as the bond flared again, this time with indignation and love and joy and relief and wonder and frustration. 

A woozy voice in her head demanded, _Who broke my fucking ribs?_

 _George._ Hermione laughed and sobbed as the castle shook and the fullness of their shared power manifested itself once again. Thousands of dementors were dying, exploding in the wake of their shared joy. _George saved both of us._

Percy screamed, and they three worked to drag a weak Fred into an alcove, though he was itching to be up and about. He demanded somebody find him his wand, and when no one moved fast enough, he summoned it with zeal. Within moments, Fred was back on his feet. “What did you do, anyway?”

“We tore apart heaven and hell for you.” Hermione deadpanned, knowing the truth seemed laughable, “Don’t expect us to do it again.”

“You know you love me.” Fred retorted, running with the vigor of a man who had cheated death, “You know it.”

“We’d love you a little more if you weren’t so bloody hard to revive.” George snapped, though there was no heat in it, “I think you sprained my wrist.”

“Poor ickle Georgie. Thirty compressions did you in, then? What would Miranda say?” Fred teased, firing a spell at the onslaught of Death Eaters. The whole crowd was a jumble of magical intent. 

Hermione paused in her tactical planning as she dashed across the grounds to see the 

one person she never expected to see spiriting spryly across the grounds. Hermione bet pounds to pancakes that Dumbledore had rescued his pet Death Eater. Hermione had bigger fish to fry and looked desperately around for Harry. As she yelled his name, she heard cries of, “She doesn’t know? She doesn’t know?” 

Hermione decided that this time, ignorance would serve her well, and she ignored them. She’d had a lifetime’s worth of people revealing bad news to her, and if there was bad news, she wanted to hear it on her own, in her own way. She realized that they had spent ages reviving Fred, but she knew too, that killing the snake, breaking the Mark’s pull, and killing the deamentors had done quite a bit, even from a distance. 

She had to find Harry. She had to find Ron. The battle raged on, and she was thwarted in her goals to seek them out in the battle for sheer survival. Death and desperation reigned. They had destroyed the horcruxes, they had killed the demeantors, ended the pull of the Dark Mark. She had done nothing, in the grand scheme of things. Everyone she knew was fighting. Tonks and Charlie were battling a Carrow. Remus and Sirius were ending a still-masked Death Eater with zeal and focus. Hermione knew their hearts were with James and Lily.

Hermione was struck by the evil in the atmosphere as a voice cried out in a thunder’s crack of triumph, ringing on out above hexes and the sounds of battle. Fighting stopped in a single second as Voldemort glided into their midst. People sorted themselves along sides around the wall. Hermione grabbed Ron and held him fast to her. He had tears rolling down his face. She mouthed “Where’s Harry?” 

Ron’s trembling mouth stilled, and they watched in silence as Neville stepped forward. Hermione, in desperation, gave in to her Second Sight, and saw a flash of a cloak striding towards them. Hermione squeezed Ron’s hand and leaned against her boys, secure in the knowledge that Harry was just there, just there, and she could almost reach out and touch him. 

  _“It is Neville Longbottom, my Lord!”_ A female Death Eater knocked Neville to his feet, and the crowd reacted so that Voldemort unleashed a silencing spell, _“The boy who has been giving the Carrows so much trouble! The son of the Aurors, remember?”_

_“Ah, yes, I remember,” said Voldemort, looking down at Neville, who was struggling back to his feet, unarmed and unprotected, standing in the no-man’s-land between them and the Death Eaters. “But you are a pureblood, aren’t you, my brave boy?” Voldemort asked Neville, who stood facing him, his empty hands curled in fists._

_“So what if I am?” said Neville loudly._

_“You show spirit and bravery, and you come of noble stock. You will make a very valuable Death Eater. We need your kind, Neville Longbottom.”_

_“I’ll join you when hell freezes over,” said Neville. “Dumbledore’s Army!” he shouted, and there was an answering cheer from the crowd, whom Voldemort’s Silencing Charms seemed unable to hold._

“That’s because the Light killed 97% of them.” George whispered amid the screams. Everywhere there were dead bodies, dead Death Eaters, as though they had simply dropped dead. Hermione knew they had, because she hadn’t been joking about tearing apart heaven and hell for Fred. 

“Wouldn’t the CPR have sufficed?” Fred asked, not caring at all about the screaming erupted into fighting once again. 

Voldemort had no power over them. He no longer inspired fear. He was nothing, even in their midst. The war, Hermione knew, had been won. Fear no long had a stronghold in their hearts, and the enemy was facing more than one type of death. 

“Get down, you prat!” George demanded, firing a bright blue jet of light from his wand. Hermione turned back to Ginny, who had come to her side as Ron had bounded away, holding her wand as if to say, “Can you believe that lot?” Ginny grinned, and they worked in tandem again. 

* * *

Molly saw the widowed Rolf Lestrange advance on Hermione and Ginny before Hermione was aware of it. He screamed, “You killed my wife, my Bella!” There were purple curses flying their way before Hermione knew which end was up, and it was Ginny who advanced on the crazed Death Eater while Hermione blocked his spells. They made a good team. 

 _But Molly was not to be dissuaded. “NOT MY DAUGHTERS, YOU_ BASTARD _!”_

_Mrs. Weasley threw off her cloak as she ran, freeing her arms. Lestrange spun on the spot, roaring with laughter at the sight of new challenger._

_“OUT OF MY WAY!” shouted Mrs. Weasley to the girls, and with a swipe of her wand she began to duel. Harry watched with terror and elation as Molly Weasley’s wand slashed and twirled, and Lestrange’s smile faltered and became a snarl._

Hermione ran towards Fred and George as they sought out Yaxley, Yaxley who had so endangered Hermione at the Ministry. Yaxley was dispatched with a blur of light and intent. It was then, as all seemed perched on the edge of finality, as the crowd searched for Harry. Hermione could not see his messy hair anywhere. Terror clawed at her gut. She could not feel Harry, could not find the cloak in their midst.

Desperately, she dove across the crowd as the battle sorted into sides. Death Eaters on one side, the Light on the other. They all seemed to be waiting for something, either Voldemort or Harry. 

 _Voldemort raised his wand and directed it at Molly_ , having gilded out from his hiding place once again like the scum he was _._ Hermione was scant nanoseconds away from killing the bastard, prophecy or not, when she heard a valiant yell. 

_“Protego!” roared Harry, and the Shield Charm expanded in the middle of the Hall, and Voldemort stared around for the source as Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak at last._

_The yell of shock, the cheers, the screams on every side of “Harry!” “HE’S ALIVE!” were stifled at once. The crowd was_ shocked into the enormity of the moment _, and silence fell abruptly and completely as Voldemort and Harry looked at each other, and began, at the same moment, to circle each other._

_“You won’t be killing anyone else tonight,” said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other’s eyes, green into red. “You won’t be able to kill any of them ever again. Don’t you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people —”_

_“But you did not!”_

_“— I meant to, and that’s what did it. I’ve done what my mother did. They’re protected from you. Haven’t you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can’t torture them. You can’t touch them. You don’t learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?”_

_“You dare —”_

“I am not a focus, Tom. I do not possess unteachable, unlearnable, unknowable magic. You hunted a triad you will never possess, sought a focus that doesn’t exist. And even still, you met your match in me.” Harry lectured, “But I learn from my mistakes. I try to right my wrongs. You never did, and that, alone, is your downfall.”

“You presume to lecture me!” Voldemort laughed, his grip wobbling on the wand that Hermione knew was Harry’s own. He had, somehow, mastered the Hallows. 

“When you want something, Tom, sometimes all you have to do is ask. You never knew that. Maybe if you had known that in your childhood in the orphanage, you might have made friends, might have found someone to love you as I am loved.” Harry grinned, “I’d like my wand back, if it’s all the same to you.”

The wand flew from Voldemort’s hand as he screamed, _“Avada Kedavra!”_

Harry merely returned, as was his natural inclination, “ _Expelliarmus!”_

 _The bang was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead center of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where the spells collided._ Hermione _saw Voldemort’s green jet meet Harry’s own spell, saw the Elder Wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last._

_And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand, staring down at his enemy’s shell._

Hermione, in the silence, sought out those green eyes and did the only thing that made sense. She opened her arms and embraced the boy that came barreling into her arms. Screams echoed as everyone tried to get their hands on Harry, but it was Hermione who sheltered him against her heart.

It was Hermione who stood with him as she had always done, triune in her unity with the men she loved, wholly focused on the singular goal of loving the messy haired boy who had somehow become a man when they hadn’t been looking.  

Harry reached out to Ron, and pulled him closer. He looked up to Fred and George and stepped back from Hermione, as the crowd jostled them. In doing so, Harry reached out and found George and then Fred, and sandwiched Hermione between the four of them. The sun broke fully into the sky, but it seemed dull in comparison to the brightness of the future she welcomed with all she had within her. 

Above the noise, three hearts beat as one. They heard Molly calling out, “Fred! George! George! Fred!” as she beat the crowd back to find the last stragglers of her brood. 

Fred qiupped. _I can’t send up a flare—_

 _But really, the hair should be enough._ George continued. 

Inwardly, Hermione grinned. _Oh, yeah? Says who?_ And, challenge accepted, she sent up a gentle shower of warm sparks, silver, gold, and rose, right out from her fingertips to gently fall over the jumble of people she brought together. 

She felt their laughter in her souls. Harry looked up, his glasses askew. Hermione adjusted them gently, and called, “Get ready! Here come your parents!” 

Harry grinned and burst forth onto his Dad and Papa, but not before giving Hermione a look that said he knew that she always taken care of him. Hermione knew in her soul that the end of the war changed little in that respect. She would always be there for Harry. 

And on laughter and the rush of a world free of having to keep out of sight, she let her aura flare as she kissed her boys in turn. In the distance, Hermione heard Lavender scream shrilly from less than five feet away, “She flipped a galleon!” 

It was all she could do not to double over with laughter when Luna swanned along beside them, in between Lavender and the now laughing triad, “The fairy stories people believe, I mean really.  A galleon? What would you do with that?” 

Hermione was too shocked to laugh. 

She seemed airily indigent on their behalves as she she looked up to Neville and smiled. She shook her head after gazing at him lovingly, before looking to the gingers being jostled by the merrymaking, “Remus Lupin is looking for you three.”

Hermione grinned. She just bet he was. She slipped her fingers into each of the hands beside her and felt power crackle in their palms. _Can’t you just hear him?_

_Run faster! Pull up your knees! Dodge! Dodge!_

_Don’t you know Voldemort eats sprints like those for breakfast? You think because he's dead I'll go easy on you?_

At the absurdity of their reminiscing, they burst into laughter. Hermione breathed, “We really had no idea what we were doing, did we?” And they really hadn’t, but somehow, they had done it anyway. Hermione knew in her heart of hearts that Remus would be proud. And somehow, Hermione realized that the important things had not changed.

The world would always need a triad, and she would always choose her boys. No matter what life brought, she would always be in their corners. The grip of their fingers told her everything she needed to know about their responses. In this respect, they were united, and united they would remain. 

Above them, Peeves swooped and hollered. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> War. Death. Miscarriage. Grieving. Laughter and revelry in the face of more death.


	20. Summer 1998

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We will see more war rebuilding efforts in the next few chapters.

Voldemort’s corpse was not yet fully ashes, but the sun was making its way towards setting in the sky on Victory Day. So much had happened since sunrise that Hermione did feel like she was living in a new world, if only because today had been so strange. She had hardly paused to breathe, and it struck her as strange that, in the distance, thousands of people went on about their days with no knowledge of anything that had happened at daybreak. 

Hermione knew her place was here. She had one portkey left. It was a simple piece of worn, folded, creased, paper, that had long ago contained a letter that had begun: _Dear Darling Daughter Death Wish,_ though the words had faded quickly with living rough, with submersion in water after being soaked in blood. Still, the magic in the paper remained.  

The paper, she had slowly determined, had been imbued with triadic magic. The letter was a portkey, and had brought her to a location she had not anticipated. Hermione landed behind shrubs, and knew instantly that she was near a church. She heard the strains of a piano, over the steady thrum of insects in the hedge. Hermione looked up at the building that was clearly her destination, and paused for a long second. 

It was Southwell Minster. She knew very little about this particular Minster. She had never even spent much time in Nottinghamshire. And yet, she knew that there was nowhere else she wanted to be, only that she wished those who had been her constant companions were here, too. Hermione smoothed down her blouse, and stepped out of the hedge. _Boys alright?_

Five hundred miles away, two young men were trying in vain to avoid their mother’s fussing and to manage Remus John Lupin and his knowing glances. He knew what they had done, and was very shaken by it. _Are you both okay? What’s going on?_

A soothing feeling suffused the bond, underscored by a bit of frustration. _You left us here with Remus._

_And Mum. Everybody’s fine._

_Looking around for you desperately, but fine._

Hermione let a breath out, one she hadn’t been cognizant of holding in as she waited for their responses. At that realization, Hermione tried to remember to breathe. She closed her eyes for a long second, and let go of another delayed breath. Hyperventilating on the grounds of Southwell Minster probably wouldn’t go over well. She moved across the garden and into the building, through the heavy wooden doors. They opened with nary a creek, and allowed her to slip inside unnoticed. 

She had come here, to Southwell Minster, with one final task to complete. In the distance, down the aisle, the boys’ choir was rehearsing for evensong. Their voices were raised in song, an act of praise and worship on behalf of the entire community they represented. Hermione wondered if they knew their rendition of Psalm 149 was particularly relevant to a whole group of people in their midst, many of whom would never pass through these doors.

 Hermione supposed that magic made her entry silent as she slipped into a side aisle, one that been crafted in 1234. The sound of melodious voices raised in song echoed around her and Hermione closed her eyes once again, walking along, trying not to pull on the bond, only find some measure of calm within it.

 She forced away the urge to check in at Hogwarts once again. She could feel things were fine. Remus was torn between shaking his head and demanding to know that they were well. Harry was thirty feet from Fred, and Ron was likely off in some dark corner with one of their classmates. 

 Hermione’s heart pounded, as though a Death Eater would jump out from behind the masonry. She knew none would, but her anticipation and fear felt much the same. Her feet were silent in a way that had nothing to do with her innate power. She had spent years learning how to walk as though she weighed nothing, spent years learning to act as though she wasn’t there, that she didn’t exist. 

She existed now. She did not hide in the shadows, even as she did look over her shoulder once again. She promised herself that she would never cease to exist again, not for a single second. Her life was finally her own. Hermione wove confidently through the reverent spaces, until she came to the quire that housed the organ. Hermione noted the woman sitting in the shadows, and made so bold as to join her. 

She sat, for a long moment, before the woman next to her spoke. “I’m not much of theist. But I come here, and I remember that miracles do exist. Somewhere. My miracle’s out there, somewhere.” 

The woman’s hair was auburn, and sleek. Hermione fingered the ragged edges of her own toffee-shot curls, and supposed that many women had a magic of their own when it came to their hair that was beyond even her power. Hermione did not look at her companion, beyond out of the corner of her eye. It seemed as though her whole existence centered on listening to this woman speak. 

The cadence of her voice washed over Hermione, who had never known another human’s vocalizations to be quite so welcome, “My father was a bishop. He was a dean in a minster quite like this one when I was very small.” 

She laughed gently, “I grew up playing dolls in spaces many people only saw on the telly or on holiday tours, treated with a reverence that I never understood. I suppose that’s why God wasn’t much of a question, a mystery, for me.”

Hermione said nothing. She saw everything, even recessed in the shadows as they were. She noted the woman’s steady bearing on the chair beside her own, the way she saw everything and controlled her reactions, the way her hands were calloused, the way her hair was cropped to dust her finely boned chin and the way her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

“My husband and I struggled to have a child, and I prayed for a little girl. I, a pragmatic woman who had little patience for my father’s active and vibrant theology and my mother’s unassuming, unassailable piety, prayed for her. You see, I already knew her.” She seemed as though this fact was a deep personal idiosyncrasy, but that it was vitally important it be given voice. 

Hermione wondered if this was as close as she herself would ever come to confession and absolution. 

Unaware of the nature of her thoughts, the woman continued, looking directly ahead, out of the shadows into the light the surrounded the singing boys. Her voice was low, but somehow rose above the song. Hermione knew she would hear her voice at a mere whisper in the middle of a blast zone. “And so I prayed, not just that she would come, but that she would be happy, that I would be the kind of woman and mother that soul deserved. I had seen her spirit out of the corner of my eyes my entire life. When I was a little girl, I heard her laughter in the Chapter House. I swear she poked me in the shoulder when I was twenty-five, wondering if I’d survive a warzone. She told me I had to, clearly, because she had plans for me.”

The woman did not cry. Her voice did not shake. Hermione did not breathe. “And now, I come here, sometimes, to remind myself that even though I cannot see her, that my miracle is with me, still.”

“What if she’s broken?” Hermione whispered, “What if you look at her, and she’s not the person you loved anymore? What if she did things—” Hermione suppressed the need to shake with ruthless will, for she needed to get the words out, “—that changed how you felt? Changed, irrevocably, what you once knew?”

Hermione’s hands gave into the urge to shake as as she waited for the reply that inevitably came. “Miracles are special, mine especially so. Not everyone gets to see one, and even fewer still get to hold them in their arms. There’s nothing that ever would or ever could change that love, that utter devotion. Not adolescence, and certainly not a megalomanic bent on world domination.” 

“The megalomanic is dead.” Hermione spoke these words for the very first time. “Tom Riddle is dead.”

She whispered this truth as the choir moved along in a Psalm. Hermione realized distantly that it was Psalm eighty-four. Her grandmother was something of a musician, as befitted a minister’s wife. 

Identical green eyes met in the semi-darkness as Hermione finished speaking. Harry Potter wasn’t the only person in the world with his mother’s eyes, and Hermione saw that eyes so like her own were clouded with unshed tears. “And my miracle lived.”

Hermione wasn’t sure who rose first, but she knew in her heart that, somehow, she still fit in her mother’s arms. Hermione breathed against her for a long moment. She smelled of peppermint tea, vanilla, and antiseptic, just as she always had done. “Mummy.”

“Hermione.” They stood there together for a long moment, the hymn echoing around them far less sacred than the silence of their souls, the calmness that came after almost a year of calling out for other another. 

Her mother’s grip was sure held Hermione, and carded her fingers through curls that had not seen a deep-conditioner for months and months, “I’m looking at you, Hermione Jane, and I have never seen anything more beautiful.”

Hermione stepped back gently to mop her face, “I feel like a refugee that’s been sleeping rough for months.”

Mummy threaded her arm through Hermione’s elbow, and conducted them out of the shadows. Mummy’s hip bumped against Hermione, and Hermione felt the outline of her mother’s gun between their bodies. From the outside, there was no indication that she had anything of the sort underneath her light jacket, “I don’t look like I’m involved in human trafficking, do I?”

“No.” Hermione’s tears dripped down her face, “You’re okay? The both of you?”

“We will be.” Miranda Granger replied, as they walked out into the sunshine of the future, “That I can promise you.”

* * *

The past day seemed to have gone on forever. So many people had been waiting for this day that it seemed the entire wizarding community had unlimited energy and untempered zeal. But for those who had fought at the Battle of Hogwarts, and more specifically for the five wizards and witch that had spent the last year on the run, there was no energy left to celebrate. 

Hermione had stuck to Ron and Harry like glue, until she slipped away with Luna’s help to find her parents. Hermione had waited as long as she possibly could have done, understanding that Harry had needed her with him. _They wanted him there with them, their leader and symbol, their savior and their guide, and that he had not slept, that he craved the company of only a few of them, seemed to occur to no one._ Hermione, for her part, _must speak to the bereaved, clasp their hands, witness their tears, receive their thanks,_ hear the news the sought to share with her.  She must be amongst the first to know that _the Imperiused up and down the country had come back to themselves, that Death Eaters were fleeing or else being captured, that the innocent of Azkaban were being released at that very moment, and that Kingsley Shacklebolt_ would likely be _named temporary Minister for Magic._

As people rejoiced in the streets, five people made their way to a mundane house in rural Nottinghamshire. There, they found the UK base of an underground resistance organization that existed behind the stone walls of a comfortable farmhouse. Wendell Wilkins was still somewhere in Germany, but his wife welcomed them inside as she had countless others. 

For them, however, this was not a clandestine pitstop. No, Hermione thought, as she crossed the threshold carrying a large ginger half-cat that had gotten a bit fat without someone to restrict his food supply, they would stay for a while. Outside their doors, people celebrated. Those in this house knew the truth. The War was not truly over. She thought perhaps it might never end. 

That said, there was time enough for a nap. Hermione warded every window and door, and conjured a shelf above the headboard for her wand and her gun once she was in the bedroom. She enlarged the single beds from her beaded bag, and left Harry and Ron to set them up, though the sheets were already in place. 

In the loo, she stripped off her bloodstained clothing and let them fall into a heap on the floor as she stared at her body in an unforgiving full-length mirror. Her body was covered in scars, some created by her own flesh as she lost weight and gained a bit back, and others created by acts of war. Hermione ignored the implications of her naked body, and cleaned her teeth in mundane fashion, the way she focused on her teeth an act of habituation. 

Her thoughts were so loud. She thought that perhaps she didn’t have the right to feel quite so angry. She could not silence her mind, not even after she looked around the room and realized that she had been staring into space for an indeterminate amount of time. She felt so cold, so very cold and lonely. 

_A sacrifice gladly given… fifteen-sixteen-seventeen-eighteen-nineteen…I’d sooner beat the brat out of your filthy body with my bare hands…A sacrifice gladly given…No!…A sacrifice gladly given would restore order in the world…she had never before tapped into this depth of her power…nothing would stand in her way…_

She donned a thin pair of trackies, a comparatively clean bra, and her sleeping henley. Exiting the toilet after picking up her clothes with the half-cat that refused by mutual accord to leave her side, she slipped into fresh socks and left her boots by the bed, ready to slide on in a single second. 

_A sacrifice gladly given….No!…the death toll continues to rise…children…A sacrifice gladly given…the fullness of her power rushing her veins…the surge of her aura…her power and her will would submit to nothing, nothing in heaven or hell…_

Then and only then did she pull down the covers, fire off a spell to blacken the windows, and crawl into bed. Her wand and her Glock went on the shelf, her fingers securely able to reach it. 

Harry was already passed out in his single bed, his pillow pulled over his face, his wand clasped against his chest. Ron, likewise, was facing the wall in his own bed. His wand was slack in his grasp as he snored. There was, unless things had radically changed, a Wheezing product designed to provide distraction under his pillows. 

Fred padded into the room. Hermione avoided his direct gaze. There was blood on her hands. Fred put his wand, his gun, and a knife on the nightstand, along with his wallet. The worn leather held an undetectable extension charm, meaning that it held all sorts of currencies, passports, and anything they five might need to survive and start anew. 

George followed not ten seconds later, locking and warding the door as Fred crawled into the cotton sheeted bed. He divested himself of any weapons and his wands in a similar fashion to his brother, and carefully set a pouch much like Hermione’s beaded bag on the opposite nightstand. Hermione knew that every potion they owned was carefully organized in that bag, and so it was one of the most important things they owned. Lowering himself to the edge of the bed, Hermione watched as George completed a headcount. The last person to turn in always did the headcount. 

Satisfied that everyone was present, George moved Crooksy off of his pillow, and folded himself into bed. Relieved that she could finally aim for sleep and outrun the thoughts that consumed her, Hermione let her fingers fall into the bottlebrush fur ball that had decided to wedge himself at her side, and closed her eyes. 

Somehow, sleep came. Somehow, it stayed. She saw flashes of light and heard the terrified screams of children she’d vowed to protect when she was little more than a child herself. She had vague notions of stumbling to the loo, and tripping back to bed. She had vague recollections of Crooksy nestling himself in her hair. She had fleeting impressions of Harry mumbling in his sleep as he always did, and momentary awareness of Fred’s head nestling against her chest. 

Some indeterminate time later, Hermione woke instantly as she always seemed to do, and noted that everyone around her was still asleep. Carefully, and silently, Hermione sorted out her wand and her gun, her beaded bag secure in her grasp. George proved an impediment to this process, as his arms came around her as she tried in vain to crawl over him without waking him up. He made a sleepy, mumbling noise that sounded something like, “Don’t leave.”

“George.” Hermione found herself, then, pressed against his body and held in a very cuddly grip, “Don’t be a mongoose. I need the toilet.”

“Come back.” George mumbled, and rolled over to steal her pillow. Hermione didn’t know why he would want her back. She didn’t know how either of them could look at her. She had cheated death in her selfishness and she had perverted the Light for her own will. She had snuffed out the potential for life in own her body, in omission if not in commission. She had let children die, children that she knew she could have, should have, found a way to save. She carried that burden alone. Her thoughts consumed her, loud, like the radio dial was constantly seeking, picking up the loudest words. 

 Fred bunched the blankets up around himself as Hermione found her feet. Her feline companion followed her as they made good on the promise to visit the loo, and then, thoughts abounding, down the steps. Rain pounded the antique panes of the windows, and thunder rumbled in the distance. 

The wireless was a steady hum. “—Shacklebolt, acting Minister for Magic, refuses to address the burning question resonating in the hearts of a war torn people. Where is The Golden Trio? The Weasley family has not issued a new statement, citing a previous plea for privacy. Reports show that Miranda and Matthew Granger have, as so many others have done, fled the country. The Black-Lupin family’s spokesperson has not returned a request for comment. The fact that our future remains uncertain as—”

A man shut the wireless off with a click, and a muttered, “Bollocks.” 

Hermione moved silently down the last three stairs, and ventured, “I thought you were in Germany.” 

A blond version of her father spun around on quick feet. “I was, until 36 hours ago. I came when the news broke in Dresden. You five have been in and out of consciousness for almost three days. You’re the first one up, beyond Ron rummaging in his sleep for roast.” 

“Sounds like Ron.” Hermione sank gently into the chair opposite the one her father was lowering himself into, and gestured to the wooden console on the table. “Kings is Minister? They’re playing Where’s Wally with Harry? What else have we missed?”

“Information is spotty at best.” Her father cautioned her, “But as near as I can tell, people are poking their heads out of the shadows and asking, ‘Is it true? What’s next?’” He sipped a mug of heavily spiced tea that made Hermione’s stomach roll and continued, “It’s going to take months, if not years, to rebuild and regroup. Of course no one sees that yet. It’s rather hard to do that when people are in the streets singing, _Ding Dong Voldy’s Dead_ and getting pissed in salute to the Trio. They’re already advocating that you take up a position in the Ministry.” 

Hermione shook cobwebs from her brain, the last tidbit of information more shocking than the ones than had come before it. What more did people want from her? 

Slowly, she nodded, as though having an out of body experience. Some part of her screamed that she wanted no part of it. She wanted no part of giving more and more and more of herself to a community and a society that had only hurt her, only battered Harry, only burned Ron and killed the men she loved. 

Watching Fred die had changed everything. It had proved a pattern, a pattern she had cheated time and time and time again. She had subverted her power. She could no longer be the witch on crusade, saving everyone from everything. In the end, George had saved her, she had saved Fred, and Fred had saved them both. Without each other, there would only be eternal damnation and agony. 

But at what cost?

Hermione knew she would never set foot in Hogwarts again. How could she? The one safe place in her world, a place that had never been safe at all, was in ruins. In a dark corridor, Fred had died. Fred had died. And how could she go home to the Burrow, knowing as she did that she had been alone in the kitchen there, alone when George’s heart had stopped and he’d been gone from her and Fred until the force of her will had brought him back? The answer was simple. She would not go back. She would not risk that again, and could not face those moments. 

She wanted to throw the wireless into the garden. She wanted to excise every bit of the reminders of those places from her purview. She never wanted to go back. Bloodlessly, she whispered, “I won’t go back. I won’t. I’m done.” Her voice rose, “Why doesn’t anybody hear me? I said I’m done. I’m done.”

There were no tears this time. She had no tears to cry. That community had taken everything from her, even her right to tears. She hated herself for being angry. It wasn’t sensible, not when Andromeda was burying her husband and Mrs. Creevy was burying her son. Colin was left behind to mourn Dennis. Brothers like they were should never be split apart in death, never.

She had no right to be angry, when she had not prevented their deaths, not when her own family had escaped unscathed. She had no right to be angry when contemplating her own losses in the face of their personal devastation. She could have…she should have… 

 She looked down at her pale and scarred hands, and then back up at her father, who was staring at her with something akin to empathy on his face. She did not know what to do with that emotion, nor with half a dozen others. Magic zinged from her fingertips, and lights flickered.

“Goddamn it!” Hermione watched as the glass bottles on the shelf above the cooker shattered, “Goddamn it all!” 

She could not even control her magic. She didn’t want her magic. Her magic, the magic that thousands of people were celebrating, had killed so many people that she had lost count. Wand, gun, will, it didn’t matter. She had killed them all, directly or indirectly. Her magic had killed one being that had never even had a chance to be a person. She wanted no part of magic. 

Hermione shot to her feet. She wanted to run until she couldn't breathe. She wanted to scream until she couldn’t feel the thrum of magic under her skin. She wanted to demand answers, because all of her years of research had never told her there were questions that had no answers. She wanted to die. She wanted to die, slide into the obvious void, where magic meant nothing, and where she had a chance to be forgiven, where her her soul might have a chance to rest, where she could sleep for days and wake up not exhausted, where she could go and never expect to have to do something as odious as wake up again. 

Hermione rushed outside, into the pouring rain. It was May in Nottinghamshire, Hermione berated herself, of course the sudden shower was an absolute cow-quaker. The splatter of cold water on her sleep-warm skin did nothing to dissuade her. She heard her father calling her name, heard the slam and reverberation of the screen door. 

Hermione bolted, her feet carrying her across the fields until her legs burned and her lungs heaved. It didn’t really help. It wouldn’t bring back all of the dead children that had died at Hogwarts, or restore the childhoods of those who had somehow survived. 

Hermione doubled over on a sob she could not contain, her knotted hair falling over her face in wet clumps. There was nothing in her body to expel. Her legs shook. Nothing she could do would ever change the fact that magic was forever tainted. Nothing she could do would ever give any of this a purpose. 

She was a weapon. She was a weapon who had failed her singular mission. She was meant to protect the innocent, defend the vulnerable. And now, the innocent were lined up in wake, the castle’s various rooms all containing dead bodies, waiting for funerals that would have to be carried out in fucking batches and the vulnerable were left to pick up the pieces, with bleeding souls and shredded hearts. She had reached her expiration date. They were never supposed to survive this. 

There were consequences for witches who cheated death.

_Hermione. Where are you? Are you safe?_

_No, love, you don’t need to stay there. Where are you?_

_Look around, please, just look at where you are._

Hermione curled up m her head in her knees, on the marshy ground, her breath coming hard and fast. Her chest hurt, and her heart felt like it was going to explode. Even in the rain, her body slicked over with sweat. There was no way out of this, there was no way any of this was ever going to make sense.

 Somewhere, in the recesses of her mind, beneath the thoughts that were so loud they rivaled the pounding of the rain all around her, she heard voices she had known, it seemed, since the dawn of time. Hermione did not follow those voices, did not do as they asked. She did not want to focus on the sound of the rain, did not want to count her goddamned breaths. It didn’t matter what she did, and it shouldn’t matter to them. They would, she was sure, once the shock passed, revile her. 

 _Why? Why?_ It was patently obvious! She had failed them. Both of them. 

Equally and totally. 

Fundamentally and completely.

 She was a weapon, and now she rusted like an old service revolver in the rain, because in the heat of the battle it had been discovered that she was worthless, useless, not even worth melting down into the universe to be refashioned into something better. She wasn’t a person. No person alive could ever feel this way, this much, or they would have dropped dead. There was a thing as a merciful death, and hers had not come, because weapons were not given the dignity of death, only the taint of inefficacy and the shame of obsoletion. 

There was some truth in being a machine. Machines and weapons didn’t have feelings. Weapons weren’t meant to carry the weight of what they had wrought. Even in this way was she defective. She had been given a job she had not done and when she’d looked around to see who had fashioned such a rusty, worthless, tool, she only saw the empty void, a void that pointed back unto her. 

 She was no more a wife than she was a—no, she wasn’t, she wasn’t, because they both deserved better, better than someone who killed everything she was meant to love, meant to hold sacred. They deserved better than someone who would let defenseless children bleed and die, children who could _crucio_ each other before they learned how to make a feather float and a jelly belly tap dance. She was a loose cannon, she’d kill them too. They’d die, in the end, and it would be her fault. 

It would be her fault. It was her fault, all of it. It was all her fault. Cedric Diggory had died. So many children, barely old enough to fight, had been mowed down, stopped dead in their tracks. Cho Chang had preceded Cedric in death by minutes, and the air left Hermione’s lungs with the force of rescue breaths at that thought. Hermione could see her black hair flying on a breeze, hear her scream as she died. Hermione wondered if she had let Cho go with Harry to Ravenclaw Tower if she would still be alive. Their blood was on her hands, on her soul, and nothing she could ever do would change it. 

Hermione heard boots approaching her, even if she hadn’t heard their arrival. 

“Hermione, it’s an electrical storm. We need to go inside.” Her father's words were matter-of-fact, calm. 

Hermione looked up at him, and admitted, “I can’t feel my feet. I can’t—”

“Let’s just focus on getting you out of the wet.” Her father was again this voice of unassailable calm, “I’m going to pick you up, alright?”

Hermione had no particular objection to this, though she knew her entire body was crackling with magic. She heard the ping of static electricity as magic tried to latch onto her father but did not find a receptacle there, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

As though she weighed nothing, her sodden frame was hefted against her father’s chest and walked carefully but confidently towards his Defender. Her father sighed, “I’m never going to joke about death wishes again after hearing two terrified boys recite your thoughts verbatim before they realized I was in the room.” Hermione could not bring herself to  get down from his embrace. She felt like a startled roe deer, unsure if human touch would be her salvation or her demise, “I promise we’re going to find a way through this, Bunny.” 

Inside the front seat, the _swish-thap_ that removed the rain from the field of visibility overwhelmed Hermione like a metronome. She curled against the seat, staring at everything but seeing nothing. The heat in the cab as they bumped over the dirt track back to the farmhouse fogged the windows. Even so, Hermione shivered. She would never be warm again. 

She sat in the Rover until she felt reasonably human again, and resolutely refused to acknowledge the episode. 

She got on with her day when she saw that Harry and Ron had woken of their own volition and were struggling to make sense of a mundane toaster. Hermione despaired of them ever learning to manage an appliance that wasn’t wand-powered. George was incredibly tense and Hermione could not find the words to soothe him, words she desperately wanted to give. As the eggs cooked, Hermione wanted to find the words to assuage Fred’s fear.

She wanted to find the words within herself to find some sensibility. It just seemed that buttering her toast stole her whole focus and that in the moments between devoting herself to activities with a frantic perfectionism, that she was overwhelmed. 

* * *

Days passed. Hermione did not know how many, nor did she particularly care, because when she thought about the slow march of the hours, she wanted to hyperventilate and be sick. The world outside her walls could burn, for all she cared. 

She ignored the knowledge that countless owls were trying to find her. She sent out no letters, save those in reply from family and friends. She refused offers of an Order of Merlin, refused a meeting with the PM. It was the right thing to do. She did not want praise for doing her duty, and she did not want to be celebrated for making the choices she had made. She hoped Cedric would be awarded an OOM posthumously, along with those who had died fighting. 

was almost entirely numb outside of aching moments of hyperawareness and bouts of anxiety so intense they left her quaking as though she had survived a tropical storm in Barbados.

 She knew she was responding appropriately to the trauma that her life had become. She wanted to snap out of it, she was angry that she couldn’t, especially since George and Fred each seemed more worried about her than they were about their own mental states, which seemed to be far calmer than her own. They were leaning on each other, finding ways to smile, finding moments where their worlds seemed normal enough enough that they found hope and footing. 

She spent hours making sure she knew where Harry was, knew what Ron was doing. They were all keeping a low profile, but when Hermione wasn’t awash with a crippling, overwhelming anxiety that made her feel as though she was caught in an undertow, she was trying to make sure they had enough to eat, trying in vain not to serve herself smaller portions so she could be sure the stores they had would last. Hermione heard her mother cry that night, which was not one of her proudest moments. She really did try to keep herself centered, but even as the more debilitating periods of detachment passed, she found that not hyperventilating was sometimes harder than running a marathon. 

Her mother talked to her about keeping life as normal as possible, about developing routines, about talking about her perspective. Hermione wanted to get better. She wanted to be better. She didn’t want to drag the boys down through a mental connection she could not bring herself to sever. She wanted to reply, but honestly, she hardly had the energy to listen. The very simplest of choices seemed unfathomable. 

It just felt like everything she had been trying to do crashed and burned in a single moment. She could not keep away the thoughts. She had to block them out and just keep putting one foot in front of another, just keep trying. It was a horrible thing, to know that her mind, once the thing she so loved about herself, had turned on her. She couldn’t take Bella’s voice hissing in her mind, couldn’t bear to hear George’s screams, hear the deafening silence of the bond as Fred’s heart stopped. She felt as though she had to do something, anything, or she would jump out of her skin and run around, bones rattling. 

She rose from the wide chair that had been her her perch as she sorted laundry, and took the beaded bag to the dining room table. Her hair was still damp from the shower she’d talked herself into taking. It fell around her shoulders in conditioned waves that needed to be dealt with in some fashion, though her hair was far more manageable than it had been in months. 

 George was of the opinion that conditioning was a critical step on the road to normalcy, but Hermione had heard him and Fred mentally conspiring that perhaps the scent and sensation would rouse her in a way words and rote action had not. Hermione only remembered sitting on the floor of the tub, hot water pelting her in an unforgiving onslaught. Fred had soaked himself trying to get her to stand back up long enough to rinse. Nothing made sense, not even standing in the shower. In any case, a panic attack that entailed staring into space in the shower had not been one of her finest moments. 

Once her hip jutted into the edge of the table, Hermione opened the beaded bag, and with a sense of finality, shook it open over the table. Within a moment, the table was filled with all manner of items. All of these things were the things she had carried with her. Hermione ignored most of the things, seeking out her books. She had to sort them, clean it all out, put it behind her, put it away. 

Methodically she began. She eschewed offers of help, and began to place books into piles. Hermione let her fingers drift down the cover of the next book she grabbed. _Triadic Lore: Theory and Potentiality_ by A.E. Fawley. Hermione flipped open the book’s pages, and saw a passage that jumped out and grabbed her before she could look away. “In lore, a triadic focus is oftentimes noted as the exalted one, the anointed one, for their theoretical abilities. The focus is a conduit for balance in the universe. Triads, and occasionally larger groups, rise up in times of great turbulence to—”

_You don’t need that in your head right now, Hermione._

_Don’t presume to tell me what I need or don’t need in my own brain. It’s still mine. I still control it._

_Of course you—_

_All he did was point out that maybe—it’s okay, Hermione._

The emotions that cut Fred off made her sick, made her stomach coil with self-loathing. Hermione gripped the top of the tissue-thin pages, and pulled. The pages would not separate from the binding. Hermione pulled harder. “I suppose I thought this was funny!” Hermione pulled tighter, tugged harder. Her fingers were white with the force of her grip, “It’s paper!” She didn’t care that she felt lost in her own mind, overwhelmed by implications and reasons and feelings and potentialities, “And paper tears! Paper tears and people die!”

She just wanted the damn thing to tear. She’d trusted it. She’d trusted it. And it was mere ink on a page, high ideals that had done nothing! The book ripped with a sickening finality, pages flying everywhere in pieces around her. Logically, Hermione took this act as proof not of her own power, but of her own failures, misuse of power and the frailty of the spell she’d originally placed on the books. But before she could reach for the latter portions of the same tome, it had been plucked from her hands. 

The table was shoved backwards by one person, and another body was preventing her from lunging for the book, despite the fact that it was hers, and she had a perfect right to ruin it and tear it up to make snowflakes if she wanted to do it. 

“Fred Weasley, let me go!” Hermione shoved at him, hard, shoved him back, “Don’t touch me!” Instantly, he let go, but he wasn’t looking at her like he’d never seen her before this moment. Hermione’s heart was hammering in her chest. She could not believe that this was her mind, her body. She was terrified and terrifying. She didn’t want to hurt them. Magic crackled along her fingertips, danced along her body like a second skin, tight and painful. 

“I’m not scared!” Fred retorted, “You’re not scary! I am not afraid of you.”

“I can’t even control my magic enough to keep schoolchildren alive!” Hermione returned, encompassing everyone who had gathered to watch the center ring of the circus, “I couldn’t keep anybody alive. They all died. They all died, because I failed.”

“What is it you want, Hermione? What?” George demanded, his words as soft as his eyes. “You said it yourself. Paper tears and people die. You are not Merlin, you are not God. You’re just—”

“A failure! The Greatest Witch of the Age! The Anointed One! The Balance! A blazing failure!” Hermione retorted, “With innocent blood on my hands. You do realize, don’t you, that we were never meant to survive the final battle?” 

They all knew it. It was fact, not the ramblings of a mind so beyond her. The world had made its plans clear, and she had screamed, clawed, and demanded, ripping them away from the jaws of death with magical grandiloquence and muggle determination. 

“Maybe if we had died, those children would be alive. The bond asked me for a sacrifice willingly given, but I wouldn’t do it.” Somehow, she found herself giving voice to the thoughts that had swirled in her mind for days, growing and growing and growing louder, “I wouldn’t give into that urge, wouldn’t even risk it knowing that there was a chance we might have lived. I wouldn’t because I thought myself too powerful. And maybe if I had stopped thinking about myself and how what it was asking was beyond my capacity to give—” 

Hermione tensed with the enormity of her words. She just wanted somebody to understand. All over the country, they were lauding her as selfless, as the Witch who Won, when in actuality she had been the most selfish creature to walk the earth, for years and years. She had long ago stopped being a child, long ago, and so that wasn’t an excuse, wasn’t a reason. Harry had won the war because he had been unafraid to face to death, willing to lay down his life and submit to death, and because of that, he lived and lived in the Light. She’d spat in death’s face and presumed to know more than all the Universe. 

“Maybe we were supposed to die.” George backed her up in this articulation of their darkest truths, “But we didn’t and there’s a reason for that, and it’s a reason worth finding.”

He knew better than anyone what they had done in that corridor. He knew better than anyone else in this world what would have happened within the hour had Fred gone. They, like his aunt and uncles before them, would have gone out in a blaze of glory. The recycling of their magical power and energetic vibrations would have sent into motion a chain reaction. Hermione could not say what that chain reaction would have been, but she did know that she had stared death in the face and told it to sod off. 

Fred didn’t remember much about his injuries, thank Merlin, but he had been thinking about it. So had Hermione. So had George. The recycling of their magic might have saved all those who had died. How could they not think of such things? 

“Hell, I saw the pattern starting when we were kids, knew it would repeat three times this year, and it did. I felt it building. We all did. We knew when we went to that castle that we were going to our deaths.” Fred revealed this, and she knew that finally speaking the unspoken truth gave life to a ghoul that haunted them, “But you’re stronger than any cosmic pattern, not because you’re some trite archetype, but because you’re you, and you gave everything you had to give.” 

“I was selfish!” Hermione refused to let either of them keep their allusions, either of them put her up on a pedestal, “Half the time I close my eyes and I feel her, kicking me. I hear her screaming that she’ll do what—” Hermione’s voice grew tight, “what happened, and I wonder, was that my sacrifice willingly given?” 

Hermione could barely breathe, a wave of heat overtaking her body to the point that she wanted to jump from her skin to make it stop. She breathed, knowing she would survive, “and then I…”

Hermione floundered briefly, “What kind of darkness is within me if I could do that and not realize it?”

“It wasn’t something you could have prevented.” George insisted, as the muggle lights above them flickered, “Any more than you could have prevented Cho’s death or Crabbe’s death or Mad-Eye’s death.” 

“Do you understand that you’re defining success as your death, Hermione?” Fred asked, “Do you really mean that the world would be better if we were dead?”

“No!” Hermione retorted, raking a hand through her hair, “I don’t know if it’s self-aggrandizing to believe that we lived for a reason. Why should I value my own life, the lives of people I love, over someone else’s life?” 

“That’s the cost of being mortal.” George said, “I don’t think it’s bad to admit that you’re connected to other people.”

_You’re connected to us._

_That’s not bad, is it?_

_“_ Think of what you did do, Hermione.” Fred ventured, “You saved us, and rightly or wrongly, that’s something worth accepting.”

And for the first time, Hermione gave her tears a voice, and let herself be held as she cried. Somehow, their shared tears shifted something within her. She did not think that walls were broken down, but rather bridges built. Somehow, in sharing their pain in overt fashion, she felt less alone. It wasn’t a panacea, but it was a profound in its simplicity and its minutiae. 

* * *

George poked his head into the dining room, where Hermione was sorting another pile of items from the beaded bag, that work having taken her several days. She wasn’t quite ready to put aside her go-bag, but she could lighten it. She could put away some books, set aside a few boxes of ammunition. It was the work of a lifetime, but she somehow found it appropriate.  “Do you want to go for a run?”

“What?” Hermione blurted, “I’m just going to go—” She floundered, not feeling at all that returning to the chair to continue sorting out all of this literal baggage was particularly appealing. There had been three memorial services in the last three days, and she was doing her best to focus on the next task, rather than picturing coffins lowered into the ground. “You know what? Sure.”

Hermione went upstairs, and changed. She laced her trainers with a perverse sense of accomplishment. She tied up her kitchen shears shorn hair, and appeared on the porch within minutes. She grabbed a shrunken radio and slipped it into her pocket. Muggle music, as it had done at thirteen, fueled her runs. Now, it obscured thoughts of what had been over fears over what might be. Hermione wondered if that was the zeitgeist of aging, though she was in no place to make peace with it. 

Carefully, she slid the charmed speakers into her ears, and pressed her front foot down to take her weight as they each set off. This time, running didn’t feel like she was running away from her pain, but rather towards a place she could admit that she felt what she felt, though it made her uncomfortable and angry to feel the things she felt.

She didn’t understand anything, now, couldn’t now, but maybe, one day, she might get to a place she could understand it, or accept that she never would be able to find some sense, somewhere. Right now, both were impossible, but that was okay. She had spent almost a decade of her life with trainers on her feet, praying she could make it to the next mile, the next step, the next stride. She could count on that to get her through the hour, and the day. 

* * *

What remained of the Ministry was a grand mess. Percy was beside himself with paperwork and his missives grew increasingly determined and focused. Hermione felt that same sort of determined, steely focus. She was not dealing with reconstruction in quite the same way, but her blood pounded with grit.

She was going to the Burrow for dinner. 

She wanted to do this. She wanted to at least try. She wasn’t going to hide behind her curtains. It wasn’t like she could forever avoid the Burrow, and the first time would always be the most challenging. 

Her parents were neck deep in work with the Underground, and Hermione wanted to talk to Kingsley. She wasn’t ready to brave the Ministry, unsure if the Magic is Might ode to Pureblood supremacy would still be there, because she was unwilling to ask. However, she knew Kingsley would be over for dinner and she was keen to make an introduction. 

“Well, how do I look?” Ron asked, saddling up to her side in the bustling kitchen. Harry was yanking on his freshly shined brogues, hopping on one foot as he did so, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth as a place to store it before actually going to clean his teeth. A rinse cup floated along around his head, urging him onward to that task.

Ron looked, insofar as they could living out of a beaded bag as they were, very nice. His hair was freshly trimmed above his collar, and his button-front was charmed into a crisp press. Molly could not have done a better job. Hermione adjusted her own cardigan, borrowed from her mother and then sized to fit, and replied, “You look nice.”

Fred cocked his eyebrow, letting that absurd wiggle speak volumes. “That’s because he’s got his eye on a girl.”

George agreed, from where he was coming down the stairs into the kitchen. “Wants to make a good impression.”

Hermione considered this notion as she studied Ron. She very seriously wondered if Ron had his eye on a young lady, but somehow that did not quite fit the situation. Harry, too, looked quite nice. She did not think they were both focused on courtship. 

Fred shrugged, following the line of her thoughts. “I could see them working out a nice little domestic arrangement. You, George?”

“Oh, undoubtably.” George raised the ante as he continued, “What’s her name, lads?” 

“We are not interested in a woman! Or each other, Hermione, so save it.” Ron was as red as a tomato when he decried their notions, fumbling with his cuff buttons. “I do not have my eyes on anyone.”

George spied a salient detail as socks and shoes were adjusted underneath the legs of trousers. “See, they even matched their socks and shoes.” 

This, somehow, was a clincher for Hermione. Harry, too, was scrubbed up and neat. He carried the effort with a bit more gravitas, being that his father had been taking him to his tailors since he could walk, eschewing the notion that young men did not visit their father’s tailor until a more suitable age. “So, there’s not something you want to share, then?”

“Well, there is, actually.” Ron swallowed, “Harry and I are going to take Kingsley up on that job offer. For the auror office.”

Hermione had gotten an identical offer, as had her boys. She had no intention of taking it. She wasn’t going to be a Focus for hire, not anymore. She was going to do something different. What, she did not know, but that seemed immaterial so long as she knew and accepted that she would never again be a weapon. 

She took in the two boys standing before her. Despite their best efforts, she saw Harry’s rumpled hair. She saw the bright shock of sunburn against Ron’s neck. “But—”

“I know.” Harry sighed, accepting her hesitation matter of factly, “School.”

Hermione realized that her first had not been for their educations. She had looked at them, and she saw the boys she had vowed to protect, not the men who had proved themselves capable in every respect. She was not joining the auror office. She just couldn’t do it, though she found herself admitting that she’d do it if they needed her. “No, actually, I hadn’t considered your educations.”

“Liar.” Ron returned, a hesitant smile on his face. 

Hermione returned that smile. Though her smile hurt, Ron’s were precious indeed amidst his growing quietude, and Hermione knew she would crawl on her belly through glass to see him smile. “I did consider it, but it wasn’t my first consideration.”

“She’s telling the truth.” Fred asserted, sharing a look with George that neither boy caught. 

“Have you two really thought about it?” George, ever the more conciliatory member of the triad, was the one to handle more contentious topics with some grace, “I’m not saying you're not capable. It’s just that you won’t have the backup you’re used to relying upon in a lot of ways, and that might change things.”

“Only time will tell.” Hermione ventured, secure in the realization that, for Harry and Ron, this was progress. This was their dreams, laid out before her, their souls bare. Though her heart was pounding, there was nothing more she needed to know that her words were the right ones,“If the idea makes both of you individually happy, then you should do it.”

“Do you mean that?” Harry asked, and Hermione saw something flash in his eyes, something as bright and as eternal as the love she felt for him. “We won’t do it if you think we shouldn’t.” 

“I think you and Ron can do anything you choose to do.” Hermione assured him, encompassing Harry and Ron in a single glance, “Have you told your parents yet?”

Ron shook his head. “We figure this isn’t something they can decide, you know?” 

Hermione understood their positions. Still, she advised them, “I’d tell them before you tell Kings. They’ll be supportive, but you know that not going to Hogwarts is going to be an adjustment.” 

“Are you going back, Hermione?” Harry asked, Hermione heard her parents returning in the nick of time to accompany them to the Burrow.

Hermione admitted her truth, “I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t know?” Harry asked, as though this surprised him, though she did hear a calm acceptance in his voice. He had spent many years not quite knowing what he wanted or how he felt, and she had had always been there for him. Hermione supposed that, knowing how he viewed her, any uncertainty on her part would be a worry for him. 

Hermione tried her best to assure Harry, “I just need time.”

“You have it.” Ron agreed with the mental dialogue that affirmed the same, though of course Ron could not hear his brothers. “You’ve never had it before, but you have it now.” 

Hermione held fast to that promise as they finished getting ready. Her parents came down the stairs. Her mum encouraged Crooksy not to throw any wild parties while they were out, and Hermione knew that she had planned that joke with Dad. 

 As they clasped the portkey, her palms slicked over and her heart started to race in triple time. She pasted a smile on her face, but knew her pulse jumped in her throat as they popped away. George’s own heart rate skittered, and it was Fred who reached out to both of them with a steadying hand as they landed. 

The Burrow was silent. Hermione had never heard the Burrow be silent, save for the dead of night. They landed just outside of the garden door, and not a scintilla of noise spilled forth, not pots cooking, not voices chatting, not even the sound of the wireless. This change hit Hermione like a lorry, until Ron stepped forward. “It’s a security charm. They know we’re here.” 

Within a second, a bubble popped audibly, and the happy symphony of pots on the stove filled her ears, as did the tick of the clock as wards she’d erected dropped and the door opened. Molly and Arthur came forward, and embraced Mum and Dad warmly. 

Hermione felt her pulse skitter and jump, only to slow incrementally when, even in the throng of people who were gathering, George stayed within arm’s reach, and Fred never left her eyesight. Hermione spent so much focus watching Harry and Ron that she nearly missed a large reason she had come here tonight. 

Aware that others were waiting upon her, Hermione provided introductions between her parents and the acing Minister. Hermione finished the introductions by saying, “I had hoped to introduce my parents to you so that you might work together to facilitate the reintroduction of the families and individuals they have been protecting.”

The look on Kingsley’s face was priceless as her parents simply stated that they had only been doing what was right. The whole kitchen stilled. Percy was watching, she knew, to see if the man who had persuaded him to stay on at the Ministry despite his impassioned desire to leave, was going to stand by his word. 

After a long moment, Kingsley spoke, “I would value any insight you might provide. I simply have one question. Actually, I have several, countless, but—”

“How?” Mum ventured, “We relied largely upon training and contacts we developed in the service. Beyond that, we had an objective and the means to meet that objective, and we did it to our upmost.” 

Naturally, the discussion of the Underground took up the meal. Hermione did not offer much by way of her own insights, instead taking the time to notice the stress lines around Charlie’s mouth, the way Bill scanned his brothers and sisters every few seconds as if to assure himself that they were all okay. They weren’t okay, for they each were dealing with the War in their own way. Ron had grown quieter, and more measured. Harry had the eyes of an eighty year old man, and kept glancing to the door. 

Ginny was quick to offer a word of encouragement, quick to fill any gaps she saw. She had, Hermione realized, been Neville’s right hand at Hogwarts, working under the radar to heal and support and protect. Whereas she had drawn the eyes of the Carrows from time to time, she had done the deeply scarring work to be there for students in the aftermath. Hermione was not surprised to see Ginny and Fleur with a far stronger and more supportive dynamic. 

Everything had changed. The whole table was filled, but the people around it were radically different. They had each been worn down to hard edges, tested to reveal their innermost selves, pushed to reveal their strengths and their tenacities. Hermione saw their individuality as she had never before, even as she knew that they each carried burdens that were very much alike. 

After dinner, Charlie and Tonks wanted to talk to Remus and Sirius. Harry was a bit interested, but he stayed with Hermione and the others as they worked to clear the table. The muggle way she chose to undertake the process seemed to fill the gaps and her silences, even as it made conversation and the slight bits of levity in the kitchen easier to handle. 

Her parents were still deep in conversation with the Minister well after dessert, not even breaking in explanation as she took their dishes, and so Hermione went into the kitchen, her head spinning, to assist with the dishes and the clean up. Everyone had scattered hither and yon, as keen as ever to get out of chores. 

Her heart pounded when she saw that the tap was running but Molly was nowhere to be seen. 

Hermione waved a hand and the tap ceased, taking its noise with it, through the cessation did not tell her where Molly had gone or been taken. Hermione wrapped her fingers around the edge of her wand, and began to walk toward the pantry and the prep spaces. 

 _She was just in there._ Fred was upstairs with Ron, who needed a few minutes to himself. 

George was with Harry and the others in the sitting room. Fear pulsed down the bond. 

Hermione was already looking for Molly, and saw nothing amiss in the pantry when she swept it with efficiency. She found Molly clutching her apron to her face in the work room, her face blotchy and her her shoulders shaking. She instantly tried to play off her tears, but it was not possible. Hermione did not ask what was wrong.

She simply stepped into the offered embrace, and heard Molly brokenly whisper against the top of her head, “All eight of you.”

Hermione knew what Molly meant, what she could not articulate. She had eight alive children around her table, eight children she had worried for every moment of every day since the war had begun in earnest and their spoons had slid back into ‘Mortal Peril’ and never left that default position. Borrowing something she saw through George’s eyes, Hermione spoke in low tones turning her head slightly to make herself heard, “We’re here, and we’re not in mortal peril anymore. The spoons don’t lie, do they?”

Molly gave a shocked laugh. Hermione remembered one summer long ago, when George and Fred had snuck out on a warm summer night in a Ford Anglia. They had tried to cover their crimes when caught sneaking back into the Burrow, only to be told that Molly and Arthur had known they had been out, because the spoons didn’t lie. 

Hermione luxuriated in the sound, and let Molly hold her for as long as she liked, transmitting every sensation of the moment across the bond. She would never tell, but there was nothing quite like a mother’s hug, and they all needed as many as they could get. 

After a while, Molly stepped back and mopped her face. “Well, now, dishes won’t wash themselves.” She looked at Hermione appraisingly, “You’ll take the leftovers, won’t you?”

“If Charlie doesn’t leap over the table for them.” Hermione promised her, and accompanied Molly out to the kitchen to do the dishes. 

“He won’t if he knows what’s good for him.” Molly replied, placing her hands into the hot soapy water. 

Hermione nodded, and turned her hands to work, relaxing only when the room filled with the four people that had not left her sight for over a year. After completing her own portion of the chores, Hermione took a cue from Harry and Ron. They wanted to tell Remus and Sirius and Arthur and Molly of their plans, and to do that, they needed privacy. 

* * *

 

Entering the dining room, she asked Kingsley to accompany her and George and Fred into the garden to discuss what everyone knew and assumed to be information he would need to know about triadic magic. Hermione could see that Kings was a little bit nervous as they went into the garden. 

Fred started them off, “We’re very appreciative of the offers to join the aurors.” 

George continued on, the lights in the garden making them seem almost ethereal. Hermione thought she could see their auras glinting around them in the glow of the light. “We want to tell you that we won’t be accepting the offers, generous as they are, because we’re not going to be in that line of work anymore.” 

Kings nodded, his hands clasped behind his back in consideration, “I had to try.” 

They did understand Kingsley’s position, but it was clear that he needed to understand their own. “We’re not a triad for hire. If there’s ever a problem, you know who to owl. But we need lives of our own.” Hermione tried to be as firm and as kind as possible, “It isn’t that I don’t want to support the Ministry, or that I didn’t seriously consider taking you up on an administrative post, but we just need time.”

Kings swallowed. “Much has been asked of all three of you. I will not add to that pressure. You know where to find me, if any of you ever need anything.”

“We’re glad to be in accord. But before we go inside—” Fred grinned, and it was so much like his pranking grin that Hermione felt like hope and wonder and joy all mingled together in her heart. 

George sat down on the bench behind him, where they were congregating near the picnic table. “We assume you must have some questions for us.”

“Totally off the record, of course.” Hermione asserted. There were things that Kingsley might want to know, and there were things he needed to know. There was a large difference, and she felt no shame or remorse in restricting information he learned, even though she knew that such a thing would have sent her into a fit of outrage a year prior. 

“Of course.” Kingsley replied, though Hermione knew he was going to have to use what he learned judiciously, if at all. 

 Kingsley cleared his throat, and began to ask them questions. Many they had to answer only partially, and many could not be answered at all. Kingsley was not angered or daunted by this truth, and continued onward over the course of an hour, gleaning as much as he was able. 

“Are you able to share how you faked Dumbledore’s death?’ Kingsley asked, having been given partial answers on most of his recent questions. Hermione knew he was likely feeling confident. 

“No.” George answered, as they were instantly of mental accord. “Isn’t he singing the injustice we meted upon him to the sky?”

“He refuses to comply with the Ministry, because he is facing a ministerial inquiry for some of his actions as they relate to his management of Hogwarts from 1991 to 1998.” Kingsley informed them, “I’m sure you’ll be subpoenaed.” 

Shock rolled through the bond. For their entire lives, Dumbledore had been untouchable. And yet, Kingsley was doing everything he had said he would do, and yet more. Hermione schooled her face, and nodded simply, leading her boys back inside while they reeled mentally. Even the reactions that followed the announcement of Harry and Ron’s chosen paths could not touch the tumult of emotions that came with knowing that Dumbledore was not above the law. 

It seemed that there was change afoot at the Ministry, and it was embodied by a tall man of color with a deep voice who wore a bomber jacket and denims to clandestine meetings with the triad the press was hunting over cottage pie and cake. Hermione felt no small spark of hope as he left them alone in the garden. Hermione put her head on Fred’s shoulder and looped an arm around George, staring out of the darkness of the garden into the light of the kitchen that bustled with life. 

* * *

Hermione needed that rush of hope a few days when Harry and Ron approached her in the way that they always had done when they had a plan. It was soon clear that they had a plan, this time, for the first time, that did not indirectly or directly include her.

The bowl of peas she was shelling from the garden shook in her grasp, and she set it down on the table in Molly’s kitchen as Ron cleared his throat. Hermione regretted asking what they wanted, what they were thinking of, because never had a million years had she considered this potentiality. “It’s mainly a work thing, ’Mione. We don’t want to disturb you coming and going at all hours.”

“And, well,” Harry added, seemingly seeing something in her face. Hermione knew she was ashen. She could no sooner change that fact than she could pull the moon to the floor of the Irish sea. “I thought you would want to set up housekeeping.”

Hermione swallowed the acidic response that bubbled in her mouth. Of course she had been thinking about it. How could she not, with Mummy so focused on the topic? She had a flat, and there was room for Harry and Ron, if the idea of being there was remotely palatable. “It hasn’t seemed a priority.”

Ron seemed to understand something she did not say. No longer, it seemed, was Ron a teaspoon of any sort. He picked up a handful of the pods, and began to shell in companionable silence before speaking, “We can wait. I just thought it seemed a good idea. It’s near Diagon. Not even two tube stops.” 

“No.” Hermione swallowed, looking between Harry’s hopeful gaze and Ron’s knowledgable stare. “You should take it.” 

She would never, never, let these boys stifle their growth and their dreams because she never, never wanted to be without them. This moment had to come, and she would rather they choose to go then feel they had to leave. She would rather they made their choices from a place of empowerment and hope rather than desperation. 

Hermione sought their gazes, “I’m so proud of you both.” She truly was, for they were doing things that she herself could not do. She did not know how she would sleep without knowing with her own eyes that they were safe and well and whole. She did not know what she felt, except a sort of agony that she knew she had to hide, for she knew that she should have expected something like this. 

“Do you mean that?” Harry sought her assurances, sharing a glance with Ron, “Not just because you think you should do, Hermione.”

“I have never been more certain.” Hermione assured them, knowing that her pride in them was an unshakable and unassailable thing. Her fears and reservations about them living alone had nothing to do with them. Harry and Ron were capable, sure, and confident, confident enough to go in the direction of their dreams, and there was nothing more she could ever ask for in their lives.

Her own fears and worries had nothing to do with them. That was all her. Hermione leaned into the bond to prevent the tears prickling behind her eyes from spilling. She desperately did not want them to go. She knew, however, that they had earned the right, more than anyone else she knew, to live freely. 

“We’ll come for dinner. You’ll see us every day.” Harry assured her. “You know I’m always going to need you, Hermione.”

“You’re more capable than you think.” Hermione returned in the same fashion. Ron’s open gaze was hopeful, his blue eyes sparking with something of a warmth that told her he saw exactly what this conversation meant to her, “It’s not you I’m worried about, here. I have no doubt you both will be fully happy in your new flat, honestly.”

Harry brightened. “Ron and I were thinking…” 

“Yes, I will set the wards for you both.” Hermione agreed, of private accord with George and Fred equally, in the sense that they would never let Ron and Harry live anywhere but behind triadic wards. The press was hunting them like dogs on the scent, and only their muggle seclusion and the closed ranks of those close to them kept them safe from the onslaught. 

_Not, of course, that those wards aren’t doing anything._

Hermione mentally agreed with Fred’s assessments. Hermione saw the world through his eyes for a long second and watched as he passed George a beaker. They were seriously hard at work, focusing entirely on their cures and aids. Hermione wondered if they would ever be able to make something that would mend her fractured soul. 

When Harry moved to ask another question, Hermione anticipated it with the same accuracy. “We’ll get you a microwave. You won’t starve, Harry. I happen to know Fred is very good at programming them with spells. You’ll eat.”

Ron shrugged, “It’s not like we’ll eat there much, anyway.”

Hermione wanted to beg the question that, if they weren’t going to be there, why they were going in the first place? She did not. Instead, she tried to feel the hope she saw reflected in their earnest faces. She owed them that much. She was not going to let them live in fear, not after everything. 

If Hermione cried behind the closed and warded doors of the upstairs potions lab as Harry and Ron excitedly began to talk about their flat in the kitchen, no one save for two people who would never tell a soul were any the wiser. 

Still, the process of watching Harry and Ron move was challenging. As ever, she defended them with vigor to Molly, who feared for their safety but was unwilling to press the issue. She helped them pack. She cooked great batches of food and put them under stasis in the food cupboard in the small but secure flat. She helped to hang drapes and set wards. She added every bit of her magic to the flat, met the landlady, and smiled when they all stood in the small sitting room that doubled as a kitchen and dining space. 

And then it was time to go. There was no reason to stay. Work began tomorrow for Harry and Ron, and Molly had already thrown them a celebratory dinner. Her throat felt tight as she smiled, “We should let you get your rest, shouldn’t we?” 

Ron was in the midst of hauling out his framed chocolate frog cards and setting them on the mantle. News had arrived that they would be getting chocolate frogs, but Hermione dismissed that as premature gossip. A keeper Hermione could not name took center position. Somehow, the small gesture warmed her heart. 

George was outside doing a sweep of the small garden and testing the wards. Hermione knew that he was coming inside any second, and then it would be time to say goodbye. Hermione let her gaze sweep the small flat instead of looking to Harry, whom drew her eyes like a magnet to metal. There was nothing more she could do to make sure to the best of her ability that they would be safe and happy here. The sofa was an antique unearthed in Sirius’s attics, and was adorned with a quilt Molly had made long ago, the homey fabric covering a chippendale legged roll arm sofa. 

Nobody spoke. In all their planning and dreaming and worrying, no one had considered this moment. Fred stepped closer, his hand gentle on her arm. Hermione felt their auras pull closer. Ron said something to Harry that Hermione did not hear, looking up as she was at Fred, somehow hoping that this felt as surreal to him as it did to her.

 _We’re all going to be okay._ Hermione knew this in her soul, if she knew nothing else. _We can do this. Together we can do this._

 _We could just buy the flat downstairs._ George ventured, half-seriously on his way inside the flat. Hermione turned to him as he saddled up to her side with confident strides, his wand vanishing up his sleeve. _Mum’d put Gin-Gin and Percy and Bill and everybody here. Like that muggle show you like…_

“Oy!” Ron broke into the silent conversation in front of him. “I’m not sure what’s going on in your heads that’s cooler than my new flat.”

“Don’t go being big-headed Billius.” George returned, “Your definition of cool is chocolate frog cards on the mantle—”

Fred added a bit of information with a waggle of his eyebrows, “Girly magazines under your mattress.”

George tutted, “Such a predictable location, really.”

“Come on!” Ron returned, throwing up his arms at his brothers and looking to Hermione. “I’m a grown man!” 

George sniffed, “With a Celestina Warbuck record behind Guns N’ Roses.”

“I think you’re cool, Ron.” Harry assured his new flatmate, and rolled his eyes at Fred who sent an anti-nausea almond prototype laconically in his direction.

“Clearly, you’d know better than I might.” Fred advised, “After all, I’m not the one who has a picture of the woman who does his wash and makes his cheese toasties on his nightstand.”

George shared an appraising look with his older brother. “To say nothing of the wooly socks from your nanny you wear with every conceivable outfit.”

“Oh, get out of my flat.” Harry returned, a grin overtaking his face.

Hermione was awash with gratitude. She knew well what her boys had done for her. They had, through mutual effort and a shared goal, made the thing that had, somehow, become her boggart, very funny. Even better still, they had made this moment normal, understandable.  

 Hermione smiled and complied, as they said farewell, heading to the Floo. In the last minute before they stepped around into the fireplace, Harry and Ron stepped forward as one. The next thing Hermione knew, she was again squished in the center of a giant hug. When she could finally breathe again, she noted, “Your landlady mentioned the flat downstairs is open, you know.”

“Don’t tell Mum.” Ron pleaded, “And we just might come to the farm for lunch.” 

Hermione agreed as George grabbed Ron roughly in order to give Fred a cover for booby trapping their sofa. She gave Harry one last hug, and moved into the flames of the floo. Behind her closed eyes, holding fast to two men who felt somber and bittersweet despite their grins, she saw once again, a wiry, messy-haired little boy she had known from the very start she would die to protect. Through it all, she thought that perhaps she was glad to never have anticipated this day.

She had dreamed of peace, but never the moments that came after it. Somehow, they still felt surreal and unfathomable.  

* * *

 

It was soon clear that they could not go on living with her Mum and Dad for much longer. In the first place, they were slowly preparing to go back to their practice after their supposed sabbatical, and Monica and Wendell were going to fall off the radar a bit. The transition with the Underground would take many months, but her parents were keen to begin laying the ground work for going back to their lives. 

In the second place, living with her parents after so much independent living was challenging. Her parents wanted to move back to their home, and they did not anticipate taking their daughter, her pet, her partners, and the two boys that came with them along for the move. Hermione was a little hurt at first, but she knew that this was a normal thought process, and tried her best not to let it show that she felt a bit jarred by the notion that there was no ‘of course’ about them staying with her parents. 

 Hermione responded to this knowledge with positivity, but inwardly, she was awash with pressure. Fred and George were working to prefect a line of post-war products, meant to help with PTSD, depression, and trauma. They were channeling their trauma into something positive. Hermione could not find that within herself. 

She tried to help conceptualize products, but only found herself frustrated by the challenges that she found within her efforts to do so. Engaging with the subject matter that had made the products so valuable meant confronting her own experiences with them, and she wasn’t ready to do that, in any introspective way. The specter of these things between them was a stressor within the triad that Hermione didn’t want to press. She knew that her boys were trying to be respectful of her, erecting mental walls to shield her from some things related to their work. She felt horrible about the fact that they felt they had to do so. 

She focused on keeping her head above the water. She smiled when Harry and Ron got a flat on Diagon and Ron shot to the top of a huge incoming auror cohort. She hugged Percy when he was promoted. She celebrated when Ginny and Luna took steps to found a nonprofit to help orphaned and traumatized children, and cried with joy when Harry threw himself in on the venture. She felt a thrill when Arthur took up a seat on the Hogwarts Board, ousting Malfoy, Sr., who was rotting in Azkaban. Charlie moved home to the UK, and Hermione heard the distant peal of Tonksian wedding bells. 

Still, Hermione felt most herself when she was on her parent’s isolated farm that produced little in Nottinghamshire. She was contented to be largely removed from magical society. She felt most herself when she was working with the Underground, to help people settle in and feel safe again, healing them and soothing them. She could hear the clock winding down on that work, because within weeks, Percy would be overseeing that task formally on the Ministry’s behalf as part of his new post. 

It seemed that every bit of surety she had came with an expiry clock, largely because that surety did not come within herself. She had no way to find within herself, even as she berated herself for that inability. Hermione felt the shift in the days as she felt the shifting in her life, with a sense of powerlessness and a sense of otherworldliness. 

She wandered into the makeshift lab at the farm, following feelings of both hope and anticipation, hesitation and the thrill of a plan well executed. “Have either of you hit a breakthrough on the Panic Pops?”

George shook his head, “Better.”

“Better than helping someone through a panic attack?” Hermione asked, wondering what on earth could be more meaningful for them than what they had undertaken. The work they were doing was really meeting a need in their community, and even as Hermione was very proud of both of her boys individually and collectively, she also envied their conviction and their sense of direction. 

“Well, different.” George amended. Evidently, standing there smirking at her wasn’t what Fred was meant to be doing, because  George heaved a sigh and shifted from foot to foot like he’d just woken up on Christmas morning, “Fred, come on, come on.”

“Keep your ear on, George.” Fred went a drawer and ruffled through it for a long moment, shoving aside bits and bobs of potions equipment. Removing a folder from said drawer, he offered it to Hermione with some fanfare, “For you. Seriously.”

“If you feel the need to warn me…” Hermione took the folder and stared down at it, unseeing for the longest moment, as a myriad of emotions and thought fragments raced through the bond and danced in her mind. _The International Floo Office_ was emblazoned on the folder. 

Hermione paused. “So many people need to come home, or get to their loved ones. What have you learned?” 

Some part of her was jumping at the thought of another battle to fight, and the larger part of her wanted to crawl in their bed and never leave it. There was no choice, of course, but she— 

Hermione opened the folio and there were three British Airways tickets in the pocket. Hermione read the top ticket quickly, “London to Singapore?” 

“And Singapore to Melbourne.” George added, a second set of tickets appearing on top of the first, “See why Fred had to go first?” 

Hermione paused. She knew there was much work to be done. However, she took a breath. Her boys needed this, more than she needed to force herself to find some way of being purposeful. They needed to get away, get some perspective. She could feel that in the bond. The product lines they had developed were ready, and when they opened the shop in the autumn, she wanted them to be rested. 

George was bouncing out of his skin with barely concealed excitement. Fred, on the other hand, seemed far too pleased with himself. Hermione could not deny them this, for their own sakes. 

Additionally, it was rare indeed that they were in accord in terms of somewhere to go. Though they’d had few chances to do anything like travel, even when on the run George was more interested in going one place, and it was generally the last place Fred would agree to go. Sometimes she felt a bit like a mediator. 

_It’s a whole continent._

_Absolutely full of different climates, cultures, and places._

Hermione smiled, having understood the meaning of the folio. This awareness filled her with a quiet sort of adoration that dwelled in her very bones, “You two pranked me.”

“Just a little bit.” Fred admitted. “So…?”

Hermione considered the single warning that would define this holiday. It was the only thing they needed to remember. “If you play Men at Work on a loop I’ll switch out your sun lotion with baby oil.” 

George scoffed, feeling so very hopeful and humbled that the bond thrummed with it. “We’d know, wouldn’t we, Fred?”

“I happen to be very good at magic, you know.” Hermione reminded them. 

She paused, eyes filling with tears, as she was breathless at realizing what this gift was, at its core. They had found a way to give her time to figure herself out without pressure that had dominated her for weeks, and there was no more precious a gift, after the gift both of her boys had given her in sharing their lives with her. 

“Oh, Kitten,” Fred whispered into her hair, “Don’t cry.”

“Look, I know BA economy class sucks, but I promised Fred at least one upgrade.” George patted her back, rubbing soothing circles along she hiccuped away happy tears. 

“He won’t even need a wand for that, really.” Fred agreed, uncaring that the hem of his shirt was being used to dab her eyes, “He’s agreed to take one for the team and flirt with the ticket counter agent for upgrades.”

Hermione did not tell them that such antics wouldn’t work, because her heart was too full. Instead, she smiled, her heart so full that the bond flared around them in a gentle thrum of magic. “Thank you.”

* * *

Molly’s nose was a bit out of joint about the trip, especially once she learned that her parents weren’t going, and nor were any of the Weasley family. She sniffed, “I don’t see why you’re going away before your wedding. It seems out of order to me.”

Hermione simply agreed with a banal acceptance and continued on with packing for the trip, which naturally required little work, even as they were now living out of dressers and baskets at the farm. Molly’s reaction was so banal and so light-hearted that it made Hermione smile. Molly wasn’t concerned about safety, about staying together for survival. No, she was concerned about how it would look to everyone else, and what they would say behind their hands about Molly’s parenting skills. 

Mum had a different objective, one that Hermione could not push away with a polite but firm smile. Hermione was in the middle of writing out a list for ease of emergency contact when Mum came to her point, “You need to see a healer, and failing that, a doctor.”

Hermione flat out refused to go to Mungo’s, for reasons that were obvious. Going to the Burrow or Harry and Ron’s flat was one thing, but going to such a public place was not happening. She did not know how to express that objection to her mother without worrying her even more about the public demand for her presence, so she simply looked back at her mother, “I assume you have someone in mind.”

It turned out that Mum, in fact, did have someone in mind. She was a colleague from her time in the Service, working now as a GP in Basingstoke. She had hung up her combat boots for work in a hospital. They popped over early one morning, summer’s heat thick around them. Hermione tucked blonde hair back under an alice band, and hoped that there were no magical people at the hospital here in Hampshire. 

The intake process was simple. Hermione kept careful track of any and all images taken, and was glad that her blood tests would be run on site. There were benefits to this sort of specialized clinic, Hermione supposed, ones that had everything to do with the sort of long-term care Dr. Cheema coordinated, and nothing to do with the magic that would enable Hermione to get in and out without a single trace of her presence. 

Hermione had thought that she would be able to evade the more revealing questions Dr. Cheema asked, but it turned out that she did not ask the sort of questions Hermione had anticipated needing to evade. Dr. Cheema gleaned so much from a single glance that Hermione knew exactly why her mother had thought of her friend and battle buddy. 

Her eyes saw so much, that Hermione felt a certain kinship with her. She knew almost instantly why Dr. Cheema had a reputation of being one of the UK’s best trauma recovery specialists. It took scant few moments of working directly with her to discern that she could easily come to respect Dr. Cheema over the long-term, if she’d had any intention of seeking the sort of ongoing care that the other woman facilitated and provided. 

Hermione sat on the exam table, her body as exposed as the rest of her as Dr. Cheema felt along the bones in her hand, looking to old-fashioned x-ray films on the wall beside them in the exam room. “These fractures healed well. Were you able to seek medical attention?”

Hermione did not explain that she had healed her hands many times, too many to count, sometimes doing it solely so she could hold a wand, hold elemental magic, and fight. Instead, she nodded, “After a fashion.”

“You may have arthritis in time.” Dr. Cheema noted, with compassion in her eyes. She seemed to see so much. She had no idea that the worst of the damage was hidden from her mundane eyes, though she suspected Mum knew and accepted this as a compromise to her attendance here. “There are many medical treatments we will discuss, Hermione.”

“How did you become such an apt and able expert in trauma recovery?” Hermione asked, flitting her eyes to her mother, who was sitting in a rigid fashion in the nearby chair. 

Dr. Cheema’s response was equally as bland and just as cheeky. “How did you manage to break your arm five times in less than two weeks?” 

Hermione had not known that radiological studies and images could produce such information, and though she knew the only copies would be coming with her because she had been unable to use the computerized machines, and had instead been stuck with the battlefield model Dr. Cheema had in her specialty clinic. It seemed oddly apropos.  

Dr. Sydney Cheema was a highly educated specialist in the area of long-term trauma exposure and recovery. Her Majesty’s armed forces had paid for her education and provided the experience that had led her to establish a clinic and research group here. That she knew Miranda Granger spoke not to the ivied halls of university, but the sort of school that existed where pass and failure were life and death.  

When Hermione simply continued on with the next area of examination, Dr. Cheema accepted her response. They moved past orthopedic concerns in time, and covered everything under the sun. Hermione felt drained, but she soldiered onward. She could not go to Mungo’s, and she dared not rely on pain potion or nerve-regeneration too heavily, as after the number Bella had done on her body over the period of hours, she was hesitant to court side-effects. 

“You left your reproductive and sexual history blank.” Dr. Cheema noted. 

Hermione went rigid. 

Dr. Cheema must have noticed the way Hermione froze like a roe deer, because she shared a look with Mum, and once again repeated herself, “I’m sure you’d be happy to wait in reception, wouldn’t you, Miri?”

Hermione understood at once what their silence discourse was alluding to, and blurted, “It wasn’t that!” She thought of Malfoy Sr’s hands on her body, thought of the way he had hissed, _fight me bitch. “_ I spat my blood in his face and clawed his eyes out, shoved him off of me. Florian—” Hermione collected her thoughts, shoving away thoughts of Death Eater revels and the many who had been raped during patrols, “Many people were sexually assaulted. I was not one of them.”

Hermione knew in that moment that something was going to have to be done to bring the sexually-based violence that so many had undoubtably suffered to light. 

“You’re consenting to discuss this, Hermione?” Dr. Cheema affirmed, and when Hermione agreed, she read the minutia of the form aloud. It was common, routine. Two sexual partners, then and now, currently and in the past. Hermione saw no need to hide this truth. She had no history of sexually transmitted infections, nor of cancers or abnormal cells, and so on and so forth. She did not mention the miscarriage. 

Hermione consented to an exam and an ultrasound, and was relieved to find that the physician did not suggest any need for any testing, at least in this area. Hermione knew that she would not be visiting specialists, but she would brew some potions and conduct some magical work to correct general issues that Dr. Cheema had found, ones she had not discerned. Her ability to conduct a magical body scan with other people was excellent, but completing one for herself was rather more complicated. 

At the end of the seemingly eternal visit and exam, Hermione asked for a moment with Dr. Cheema. She suspected her mother knew what Hermione was going to do, and said nothing but very kind and fond farewells to her friend as she slipped from the room. Dr. Cheema looked back to Hermione with a questioning look on her face.

Hermione had already pulled her wand and intoned softly, “Obliviate.”

As expected, the good doctor’s face grew slack and baffled. Hermione quickly summoned all of the relevant documents and notes, and replaced the blank notepad with some journal articles that would be of interest to the kindly doctor, articles she had shrunken down in her beaded bag in preparation for this certainty. “You’ve had a very busy afternoon in the lab, and popped in here to find a lost paper, haven’t you? Luckily you found it.” 

The doctor nodded, and Hermione knew that she would have no conscious memory of Hermione planting the suggestion, only that she would believe it fully. Hermione knew well that she had covered her tracks. There was no longer any mention of her anywhere in the practice, and those involved would have absolutely zero evidence or recall of an old battle buddy and her war-ravaged daughter.  

Disillusioned, Hermione moved from the room and repeated the process in similar fashion with the clinic staff, before joining her mother in the wide corridor that connected the clinic to other spaces in the hospital. Luckily, the charm she had fired off moments ago had held, and the corridor was vacant as she joined her mother. 

Mum sighed as Hermione joined her, and they breezed out of the hospital. After all that had gone on over the last year, Hermione knew that both she and her mother agreed that some things were better left unsaid and unasked. Her mother would be troubled by the knowledge that Hermione had wiped Dr. Cheema’s memory of her visit. Hermione only hoped she was more troubled by that assumption than the truths she had learned about what had happened to her daughter over the last year. Hermione knew that would never be true, but at least in this, too, she knew better than to ask. 

When they were exiting the hospital to head to a hidden space behind some bins out of camera range to pop home, Mum reached over and squeezed Hermione’s hand. “I know you went to the doctor for me, Bunny. Thank you.”

“It was the right thing to do.” Hermione assured her, feeling quite drained and worn. All around them were people who had no idea that a war had just been fought and won and lost under their noses. In moments such as these, that alone amazed Hermione. 

* * *

Heathrow was an utter mess. They’d had to work hard to even get here without alerting the press that seemed to be tracking them. Luckily, they weren't a highly trained triad for nothing. They looked quite like any normal group of student travelers, and were naturally using muggle transport. 

Weaving through the crowds, Hermione looked at her false passport, and the ticket she was waiting to present. Her name was Jean Heloise Smythe. According to the passport that held her ticket between its pages, she had blue eyes and black hair. It was sleek, and yanked back in a ponytail that barely brushed the top of her bra strap. Jean was going to Australia for a bit of a holiday. 

Hermione glanced at George, who was ahead of her in the queue. He smiled broadly when it was discovered that he had been randomly upgraded to first class. _I did it ethically. The seats were vacant. The people in coach have more room, and they don’t have listen to Fred snore._

George was very intentionally upbeat, and Hermione gave a semblance of a response as Fred told his brother off, and promised to get pissed on the plane and tell the other passengers embarrassing George stories. Hermione, though she was happy to see them happy, could not help but feel that they were doing an extraordinarily selfish and wrong thing in jetting off. Harry and Ron were barely settled into their grueling training program, Ginny was forever assisting Molly in some fashion, and the rest of the family was so tightly ensconced at the Burrow that Hermione felt very much the odd one out, wanting so desperately to be anywhere that had zero connection to the War. 

She knew that Fred had gone with George to check on the flat, and had found it as they’d expected, ransacked, destroyed, and burnt-out. The shop stood, but anything that could have been broken was broken, and anything of even personal and sentimental value they had not been able to carry had been destroyed even beyond magical repair. There was nothing to go back to, and still she felt a traitor and a coward for leaving, and for wanting to go. 

_They don’t offer OOMs to traitors, love._

_And cowards generally don’t have the ovaries to turn them down._

Hermione accepted the running supportive commentary in her head, and was in the middle of replying when it was clear that it was her turn. The man in front of her was whisking onward to economy class. Hermione extended her paper ticket, and smiled winningly when the stewardess greeted her, “Good morning, Miss Smythe.”

“Good morning.” Hermione replied, watching as the woman clicked on her terminal to check her in. Eyes wide, Hermione asked a simple question when she saw the other woman pause, “Is there an issue?”

She made two final clicks and turned the other half of the ticket back to Hermione, along with the false ID. “No. It appears there is an error on your printed ticket. You’re booked in first class, correct?”

“I don’t want to put anyone out.” Hermione avoided a lie with the truth, as was her practice when possible. 

“No, it’s our error.” The flight stewardess smiled, “For our mistake, we’ve made sure everything is correct on your return flight. Enjoy Australia.”

Hermione agreed that she would do just that, and continued onward, her serviceable jean skirt brushing the tops of her knees as she moved toward the plane, where she was greeted cordially by a blonde stewardess named Sherry. She was escorted to the assigned seat that was second from the left in the middle of the autumnal cabin, and refused anything to drink, though she was quite happy to accept magazines as Sherry’s time allowed her to get them. 

Very carefully, she pulled a book out of her Longchamp bag, transfigured from a sock of her mother’s, and looked to the passenger closest to her right, “I do hope you don’t smoke.”

“I’ve other vices.” Patrick Christiansen returned, in a thick west country accent.

“Is one of them making your accent memorable?” Hermione whispered in an undertone, “You couldn’t have adopted something off the BBC? Gone a bit Scandi?”

“Having a tiff already?” A scruffy young man wearing a rumbled shirt under a thin cardigan set down his glass of bitter on the table that separated his space from Hermione’s own, and leaned over towards Hermione, “So if George gets to be the annoyingly charming fellow traveler, I’m going to spend the entire flight flirting, very badly, with you.”

“Shut up.” Hermione colored, and picked up her book, “I thought you said you were going to get pissed and torture George.”

“Darling lady, that is the beauty of long-haul flights.” Fred picked up his glass again in mock salute, “The possibilities are as seemingly limitless as the time we will spend, here, in a pressurized muggle tube.” 

Hermione grumbled, for the sake of grumbling, and began to read her book. It was only when she opened that front cover and brought to eye level that she noticed Molly had somehow transfigured her Elizabeth Gaskell into a tooth-rotting guide entitled, _Planning a Magical Wedding isn’t a Curse: 1000 Steps to a Charming Day._

George replied, “At least she hasn’t called you unseemly.”

_Deviant._

_Dishonorable._

_Divorced. How’s that for an annoying ‘D’ word?_

_I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed._

_George’d be devastated._

_Demolished._

_Desolated._

“Here are those magazines, Miss Smythe.” Sherry passed her two crisp muggle magazines, one copy of _The Lady_ and another of the Italian _Vogue_. “Please don’t hesitate to change your mind about a drink.” 

Hermione assured her that she would not, and turned to her magazine. If she lowered it upon takeoff to observe two very interesting young men on their first muggle flight, it was no one’s business but her own. 


End file.
